It can be difficult for any new student to find their way around campus. On this page you can find out where the most relevant buildings are and what you need to know to about the university campus.
Background
The campus of the University of Portsmouth is located within the city centre so shops and the city’s facilities are within easy reach. A disadvantage of being in a city campus is that the buildings are sometimes difficult to find as they're spread around the city centre.
The University has around 40 buildings. Some of the buildings house the University's central services (e.g., library), others are dedicated to academic departments (e.g. the Psychology department is in King Henry Building) and some are mostly used for teaching (e.g. St Andrew’s Court). You do not need to know where they all are; you just need to familiarise yourself with those relevant for your studies.
How could this affect me?
Trying to find a building just before an exam, a teaching session, a club meeting or an appointment can be quite stressful. More importantly, it may lead to you missing important information (e.g. about the course or future meetings). To avoid missing out, try to familiarise yourself as soon as possible with the buildings that are most relevant for your studies. These are the University's central services buildings, the building of your academic department and the buildings where your teaching is going to take place.
The map below highlights in yellow the buildings hosting the University's central services:
- Support services: The Additional Support and Disability Advice Centre (ASDAC), the Student Wellbeing Service are located in The Bateson Centre and the Student Finance Centre is located in University House.
- Library: The library is located in building number 27 in the map. To know more about the library read the article on How can the library help.
- Sports facilities: The University has excellent sports facilities and also offers a wide range of fitness classes. Sport facilities are located in the Spinnaker Sports Hall (number 22 in the map) and St Paul’s Sports centre (number 23 in the map).
- IT helpdesk: The IT helpdesk is located also within the Students’ Union building (number 25 in the map).
- Students’ Union: The Student Union offers a wide range of advice services for all students (e.g. accommodation, healthy living, advice on academic complaints…). You can find it in building number 25 in the map. Within this building you can also find the Students’ union bar, a shop and cash machines.
Please click on the map below to enlarge.
Practical tips
- The university will provide you with an electronic timetable in advance of any teaching or exams. To avoid last minute stress or missing out on sessions, make sure you locate the buildings in which these take place as soon as you have the information.
- For important appointments such as exams, exam revision sessions or assessed presentations you may want to consider visiting the building prior to the session.
Additional links and information
There will be other buildings relevant to you such as the building where your academic department is located and the buildings were your teaching will take place. In the AccessAble website you can find photos and descriptions of all the buildings at the university, and where to park.
This toolkit is an adaptation of the Autism&Uni project led by Marc Fabri from Leeds Beckett University, under license CC BY 4.0. The original Autism&Uni project was funded with support from the European Commission with partners in the UK, Finland, the Netherlands, Poland and Spain. For more information about this project please visit the Autism&Uni website.
