Universities have started using Twitter to communicate with students, keep in touch with alumni and recruit prospective applicants. If you are off to college this term, arm yourself with a Twitter account, so you do not miss a moment of Freshers’ Week and you know what your new friend got up to last night and how they feel the morning after.

Student unions and lecturers also use the micro-blogging site to announce gigs and ask students their thoughts on lectures in 140 character updates. It is estimated that half the universities in the UK are on Twitter. Many have only just started, but not all of them are making the most of it, according to Nic Mitchell, who runs Teesside University’s Twitter account.

“All they do is announce the latest press releases,” he says. “What we are trying to do, if people are saying something about us, is respond to enter some sort of debate. It’s social networking for grown-ups, it’s not like Facebook.”

Even before students arrive this autumn, universities are encouraging them to follow the institution’s Twitter feed. Goldsmiths, the London University college, has a Twitter account for new students with guides to the college, information about jobs on campus and ways to beat the queues during registration.

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Some will announce the few places they have in clearing with up-to-the-minute numbers on the site. Thames Valley University has a Clearing Guru on Twitter to help students to navigate the process.

Ucas, the admissions service, also tweets and will be offering students advice. Beth Hayes, who edits the Ucas website, says: “A lot of people are jumping on the Twitter bandwagon but we put off setting up an account until we had thought it through carefully. We aren’t using it as a promotional tool. We’re using it as an information tool to help applicants.”

Lecturers at Sheffield Hallam use Twitter to gather student opinion on lecture halls and study areas. Liz Aspden, senior lecturer in curriculum innovation, says: “There’s a lot of potential. Tools and applications like Twitpic and hashtag topics can help us tailor its use within an academic environment.” Students upload pictures via Twitpic or join in conversations by adding a “hashtag” to a subject they want to discuss.

The long arm of Twitter even reaches those who are leaving or have left university, with careers service and alumni accounts in action at Keele, Robert Gordon and University of Central Lancashire.

A final tweet-length word of warning: tweeting may be the new texting but don’t spend all your time behind a screen at university or you will have nothing to tweet about.

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