An interview with the EUSA Presidential candidate: Elena Lape

Elena wants make Teviot cheaper by having £2 pints a few times every month, improve summer storage facilities and make it easier to cycle round the city.

Why are you running for EUSA President?

I want to make the union work for the students rather than function just as a business. Now, I cannot promise to lower your tuition fees, no one can, but I will work to get a better deal for students throughout the university.

What are your main policies?

Summer storage — many of us rely on private storage companies to leave our stuff with over the summer. It’s expensive and inconvenient. Given there are so few students in Edinburgh over the summer than at any other time, there must be a university run space for us to store our belongings.

Bike rental scheme — by making cycling more accessible and affordable to students, the load on the dysfunctional KB bus service could be lightened. Helping keep students fit and healthy, and helping the bus service run more smoothly for all.

Revamping the EUSA website would be great — not just fixing the user interface, but adding new functionality for society management.

Of course, there’s also another very important policy of mine — cheap drinks! Ideally, £2 pints on certain days every month. If you go to Teviot, you’ll find that many drinks are more expensive than in other student bars, e.g. Southsider. The Union should exist to help the students of the university, driving them away with ridiculously expensive drinks is counter-productive to this.

Do you think your policies are feasible? Will you be able to fund all of them?

Yeah! Most of them require quite a bit of work, but are generally not expensive to implement.

I think the most feasible one is editing the EUSA website. As a Computer Science student, I would be very keen to spend some time fixing bugs and adding new features.

The bike rental scheme wouldn’t be difficult to implement either, we can copy and improve on examples already in place, i.e. the cycle scheme Pollock Halls provide. The bikes do not need to be brand new either. The same goes for summer storage, there are existing facilities which could be used which are currently under-utilised.

Why do you think you're the best person for the job?

Being an Informatics School Rep this year has been a great experience — I got to see the inner workings of EUSA, as well as increase the sense of community within my School.

I have experience in getting people to work together, which is exactly what a President does. Being in the committee of the largest tech society in Scotland certainly helps as well. Just this coming weekend, with a team, we are organising a 24 hour programming competition for 150 students from all over Europe. Super excited!