If you love writing and feel passionate about campaigns like Make Trade Fair, or issues facing the world today like HIV/AIDS and climate change, university provides loads of opportunities to flex your creative muscles. You could write for your student newspaper, and raise awareness of new campaigns and events on campus. You could also write letters to your local paper about the issues of the day, or (if you’re really keen) even start your own little ‘zine or website dedicated to all the stuff you care about. While you’re at it, you can write all kinds of thought-provoking stuff for Generation Why. We’re gathering a collection of talented young writers to contribute content to the site on a regular basis – find out more here.

Lectures, revision, the university bar, lectures, Hollyoaks, revision… University can feel like a bit of a bubble sometimes. So, if you find yourself at a lose end on a Saturday afternoon, and want to meet some people other than students, then why not volunteer in an Oxfam shop? Read what a past volunteer has to say about it. You could also help out at all kinds of local community projects – the UK organisation Community Service Volunteers even holds a special volunteering day.

We’re always looking for people to spread the word about our campaigns like Make Trade Fair on campus. One of the first ways you could get involved is by joining your local Oxfam group.

These are groups of volunteers who have come together to promote Oxfam campaigns in their local communities - by working together, you can organise events which would generally be beyond the scope of someone acting alone. Find out if there’s a local Oxfam group near you. You could also join your university People and Planet group – these are run by students and raise awareness about global issues and campaigns through campus events, boycotts, debates and more. Find out more on the People and Planet website.

You might not know it, but Britain's universities currently have a huge, negative impact on the environment. Universities and colleges consume £200 million worth of energy and produce hundreds of thousands of tonnes of waste to landfill and incineration every year. If you want to do something, People and Planet is running a campaign to get universities to 'go green'. As 100s of organisations come together for the Stop Climate Chaos campaign, there's never been a better time to put pressure on university Vice-Chancellors to improve their poor environmental performance.

If you want to make a difference to university life, why not get Fairtrade status for your university?

Just think how much coffee gets guzzled in your average university café, or how much chocolate gets munched after morning lectures, and you’ll get an idea of what this would mean. Having Fairtrade products available all over campus will also help to make people more aware of the plight of poor farmers, and the cultures and societies they come from. So far 13 universities have received Fairtrade status – to find out how to add yours to the list, have a look here.

There are so many ways to raise cash for Oxfam whilst you’re at university – one of the best places to start is your university RAG group, which will organise weird and wonderful ways to fundraise, including sponsored hitchhikes to far-flung places, formal dinners, club nights, bar crawls, Rag raids (street collections), charity speed dating and even ‘slave’ labour auctions. If you’re feeling sporty, you could also raise cash by running a marathon, organising a football tournament or doing the Trailwalker event. There are heaps more fundraising ideas on Generation Why, and a brilliant fundraising guide on the main Oxfam site.

Universities will invest money much like any other company or institution, and you have a say over how they invest it. Make sure that your university only invests in ethical organisations – you could even start a university-wide campaign for ethical investment.

Hmmm, not exactly the most exciting thing on this list, eh? But if you want to get in to an ethical career after graduation, it will pay to do some early thinking. Find out about possible ethical careers, and research the best routes in. Talk to the advisers in your careers service, and use their resources to help you make contacts at local and national organisations. And have a think about postgraduate study – if your chosen career requires it. An MA in, say, international development, could be incredibly helpful, not to mention interesting, too. For those of you who have yet to choose your undergraduate course, we thought you might like to here about how Hannah decided what to study.

Music will always be at the centre of university life – so you could combine it with your passions for global issues.

You could help to organise an awareness-raising club night or gig, where you collect sign ups to a petition like the Big Noise – remember it doesn’t have to be about raising cash.

Or take part in an Oxjam event. Oxfam's month-long national music festival which happens every Oxtober.

To keep up-to-date with all of Oxfam’s campaigns, as well as the latest events and ways for you to get involved, sign up to e-Xtra, the monthly newsletter from Generation Why. While you’re at it, forward this page on to all your mates, and tell them about the magic of Generation Why! If you’ve got a website, you could even add our banners and buttons to your site.