For many people, conference calling belongs in the realms of offices and official meetings. But taking this attitude is not only inaccurate, it can mean you lose out a great deal and waste a shed load of potential. For uni students, a group generally interested in communication and staying in the loop, conference calls could have a tonne of great uses.

Study groups

Starting with the academic side of university (something many students perhaps don’t do…) you have the beneficial tradition of study groups. In some universities, these are organised and enforced by professors themselves, while other students choose to form their own study groups to help each other with assignments – in both cases, the results are invariably beneficial.

But, for the lazy students, and you probably know a few, the idea of getting out of bed and braving the outside world to meet up with peers and talk about work is not exactly appealing. Particularly when the weather isn’t great, something known to occur in the UK. That’s why conference calling can offer such a great alternative. Right from your mobile phone and totally free of charge, you can just dial in to your conference call room and discuss the topic at hand freely, openly and easily. The gap of miscommunication created by using email or IM is closed as you can actually hear each others voices.

Keeping in touch with family

Going to uni also generally means leaving your family miles behind for your newfound freedom. But, of course, staying in touch is at the very least an obligation, and for most people a necessity. What better way than conference calling? It’s easy and accessible, even for that granddad that isn’t quite sure how to turn on a computer, and can be achieved without spending a single penny – if you know how to find the right conference provider and choose a conference call bridge like WHYPAY?.

Just visit the homepage, hit the Big Green Button and you will be given your very own conference call room number. WHYPAY? provides you with a personal, secure access PIN to the conference call room, which you can share with your family yourself, or have WHYPAY? send out email invites. Then you all just dial into the call at the allotted time and you can hear all the updates with your whole family on the same phone call. Hear all about how the dog is causing trouble and your baby brother is starting to crawl. Neat!

Conference calls for sports clubs, societies, and other groups

Going to uni means meeting loads of new people and creating a whole new set of friends in different clubs, societies and groups. And conference calling can be a really useful tool for helping to keep such groups of people up to date with each other and what’s happening. Uni hockey clubs might use a conference call to go over their recent performance at a varsity match, and chess clubs might use a call as a precursor to a big chess tournament. Of course, uni lifestyles can be somewhat erratic and unpredictable, so it’s a good thing conference services like WHYPAY? let you schedule in conferences ahead of time: you can automatically invite participants by email. But if that’s too structured for you, with WHYPAY? you can actually just use your free conference room at any time at all, by dialling in and entering your room number and pin.

Teleconferencing with WHYPAY?, though, is pretty much the ideal way to keep in touch with all your friends. All you all need is a mobile phone and the access details, and you simply dial in when you’re all ready. And it doesn’t matter how big or complicated your club or society group might be, because with WHYPAY? you can have anywhere up to 100 participants, absolutely free of charge. And the more important information or updates you have to share, the better, as there is no limit whatsoever on how long you can talk for. (Just be careful! Some mobile phone providers will cap your unlimited minutes on calls over a certain duration (check with your network))

So, there are just three of the multitude of uses that teleconferences offer to uni students. Get creative and use your free conference calling in ways that suit you and your particular needs and lifestyle. There could be loads of things you’d never considered using conference calls for before that suddenly become much easier and more enjoyable. And it’s a perfect way to make sure nobody is left out or forgotten about, sparing you a great deal of awkwardness when a friend asks why they weren’t invited on that night out or how they had no idea about your new love interest.