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When I read Jennie Bristow's article (THES, October 18) I felt no immediate need to respond as I thought that Laurie Taylor was foxing us by moving his column from the back page. I obviously confused Sussex with Poppleton. However, correspondence on your letters page indicates that I was wrong. I obviously confused Sussex with Mars.

My service does not "scrape the bottom of the barrel of things to advise on". This is week four here at Strathclyde and hundreds of students have made sensible use of the support available to them. This covers financial, accommodation, academic and personal issues and help for students with special needs. In Scotland, students spend four years completing an honours degree course and would be very unusual people indeed if they did not grow and change during that time. The student experience means making choices, working at your self-awareness, taking control of your life and being yourself. Our message to students here is that personal development is a necessary dimension of being a student and that there is support available to them to achieve this.

Our aim is that the student experience is a rounded one. We hope to encourage our graduates to be people who are open to change and to new ideas. I am sorry that Ms Bristow appears to have already closed these doors for herself.

Lin McLean Student Advisory and Counselling Service University of Strathclyde.