Meet your new Vice-President: City celeb Sheikh talks societies, sport and why he’s put his law career on hold

In a quiet corner of central London, just off the Victoria Embankment, the path outside the Royal Horseguards Hotel started to buzz. Small groups of young men and women, resplendent in crisp, dark dinner suits and opulent, elegant ball gowns, converged on the stately establishment’s doorway.

Inside, a long, winding staircase stretched up into the heavens. Adorned in deep red carpet, flanked by a white marble bannister on one side and with a balcony of ostentatious proportions at its summit, the meandering staircase led to the main function room. And as the heavy wooden doors opened into the grandiose Gladstone Library, it was clear to each and every guest that this was like no student event they’d been to before.

Forget CityBar on a rainy Monday evening, the Law Society had been determined to pull off something very different. And the man waiting to greet the impressed students as they made their way through the daunting hotel? Sheikh Hassan – this year’s Vice-President for Activities.

For, while the end-of-year Law Ball was quite obviously a team effort – orchestrated by the Students’ Union’s other new VP Zain Ismail – Sheikh undoubtedly became the public face of the impressive event.

And it’s societies that he wants to focus on in the upcoming year as he aims to bring a stronger community feel to the student population at City.

“Societies and sports are the blood and veins of the union,” he says. “They are crucial in terms of engaging with students so my role hopefully this year will be further developing the societies and just making them more attractive to students.

“Some of the stuff that I’ve been doing is to ensure that society activities are regarded as just as important as academic achievements from the university. Activities develop you as a student, especially when you’re looking for employment, which everyone’s at university for.”

And it isn’t only the students’ opinions of societies he wants to change. In what is perhaps a rare moment of naivety for the law graduate, Sheikh explains that the way the university treats societies also needs to be altered.

“Some universities have on the transcripts not just your grades but if you’re a society member or if you are a society committee member and that highlights extracurricular activities as just as important as your academic ones. It’s to do with highlighting and creating an awareness of how important and how effective it can be to join a society.”

But even if Sheikh claims that a bigger focus on societies is all about employability – a tactic that could work with some academic departments given the Law Society received a £5,400 grant last year from the Law school – he clearly wants to create a more student-friendly feel around City in line with what you would expect at a campus university.

As a regular at last year’s re-launched Wednesday night sports socials, Sheikh is putting the sports teams right at the heart of this.

“We want to create zones around the university about highlighting sports achievements,” he says. “Who the teams are and when there’s a game on. I think if students can get access to sports we can have a day where students can try different kinds of sports. Just making things accessible is the key for me.”

But with so many societies and sports teams competing for funding and recognition, some may worry that a man as well known as Sheikh is around the university could be tempted to favour his own friends over others.

So which societies is he looking forward to working with most?

“So I may be a little biased but I am excited to see where the law society goes this year,” he says – an admission that will reinforce the opinions of his doubters.

Without these ties to the Law Society, Sheikh readily admits he would not be about to embark on a year as a full-time officer in the SU.

“I would have never ever in my life envisaged that I would do something like this,” he says. “I was probably like a lot of students here at City, not really engaged with the Union.

“But it was in my final year where I was helping out with the Law Society with Zain that was probably the best year at university and that’s mostly because of societies and stuff that we did with the Union.

“I thought you know what cos I’ve done the Law Society and I enjoyed that so much let’s run the whole Union.”

Such bold statements are likely to stir rumours he may attempt to become the fourth consecutive SU President to make the step up from VP.

And the man himself will not deny that he may decide to run.

“I have no plans whatsoever actually. I’ve never even thought about it and I’m yet to think about whether I’d run for another year. Obviously I’ll have that sort of discussion with relevant people and have that talk with myself about if I will run but at the moment I have no idea.”

But even if Sheikh decides another year at City isn’t for him, it would appear going straight into his law career may not be the likeliest of options.

“I know it’s a very difficult career in terms of working and getting your targets and making sure you have the right goals and priorities. I’ve done a few internships and work placements so I’ve got to see that.

“I took a step back and I said hang on I’ve got my whole life to sort out my law career, let’s do something different, let’s do something that I would enjoy for a few years.”

And if he’s able to organise university-wide events on the scale of May’s Law Ball, then enjoy himself he surely will.

But if indeed he does harbour ambitions to sit in the Union hot seat, then the enjoyment of City’s other 17,000 students may have to come into the equation too.