Category: Uncategorized (Page 3 of 4)

Would you like a buddy to help you settle in to your studies at King’s and life in London? Are you a current international student who would like to help new PGR students? 

The Centre for Doctoral Studies (CDS) aims to support early stage Postgraduate Research (PGR) students, helping them integrate into the PGR community and launch their research career successfully.

Starting a PGR degree can be daunting, perhaps more so if you are an international student moving to a new country. It is particularly challenging this year with the Covid-19 pandemic, restrictions to being on campus and difficulty forging new connections and networks. It can be highly beneficial to make connections with peers who may have been through similar experiences and navigated the early stages of their doctorate successfully.

The International PGR Student Buddy Scheme (iPGR Buddy Scheme) seeks to connect new international PGR students (pre-upgrade) with current international PGR students who have completed their upgrade from MPhil to PhD (usually after 12-18 months, or part-time (PT) equivalent) and can act as a buddy or mentor.

Terminology 

Buddy = current PGR student, who has passed their upgrade viva and helps a new student transition into their PGR degree at King’s College.

Starting Student = a new student, who has not yet passed their upgrade viva, seeking a Buddy to provide informal advice and support as they start their PGR degree at King’s College London.

Remit and topics of discussion

The scheme is informal, and primarily led by the needs of the Starting Student. The Buddies offer a friendly connection, acting as a sounding board and/or sharing their own experiences and lessons learned. They might help signpost a Starting Student to other services and support available, although they are not expected to know all the answers.

Topics of discussion that might be covered between Buddies and Starting Students:

• Adjusting to research/study in the UK
• Logistics, and signposting to services that can help (e.g. Student Advice team)
• Connecting with the PGR community while working remotely
• Training and development opportunities
• Communities and social activities at KCL and outside

A Buddy would not be expected to:

• Provide the kind of support expected from a Supervisor, such as input on a Starting Student’s research project, or pastoral support.
• Provide any expert advise e.g. on visas, but rather help the student to seek pathways towards help or solutions.

Eligibility to participate 

We are currently restricting this pilot scheme to international students, identified by a requirement for a Tier 4 Student visa. We will prioritise Starting Students who haven’t previously lived or studied in the UK (prior to starting their doctorate). We would not expect students in their final year of their doctorate and/or writing up their thesis to volunteer as a Buddy, as their priority is submitting their thesis.

Matching 

We will ask about your faculty, school or department, and country of domicile in the application form. Where possible (and if requested), we will try to match students from the same or similar countries of domicile and/or faculty, however, we cannot guarantee this match in all cases.

Note that we can’t guarantee that all students will receive a matching, as this will be dependent on the number of buddies who volunteer.

Webinar 

We will host a webinar on Friday 27 November 14:00 that all participants (Buddies and Starting Students) are strongly encouraged to attend. This webinar will provide key information on the support services available at King’s for international PGR students, provide advice on how to get the most out of the scheme, what to do if it doesn’t work out, and to answer any questions.

Methods of communication 

We anticipate most students will communicate via phone or video calls e.g. via MS Teams, Zoom, Social media e.g. Whatsapp, phone calls. You might also email – we encourage you to discuss what works best for you. You must follow current King’s and government guidelines with regards to meeting face-to-face.

Commitment required 

Once you’re paired, we suggest an initial chat and you can agree between you how often to speak and topics for discussion. As a guide, however, we suggest that you aim to have at around three conversations over the first three-month period.

Buddies should agree to:

• attend the information webinar
• meet with their allocated Starting Student for an initial conversation (e.g. over Teams).
• respond to their allocated Starting Student’s emails or communication in a timely fashion.

Starting Students should agree to:

• make initial contact with their matched “Buddy” to introduce themselves and propose an initial meeting time.
• attend the information webinar
• respond to their allocated Buddy’s emails or communication in a timely fashion.

Apply to volunteer as a Buddy here.

Apply as a Starting Student here.

All applications must be in by 12pm Friday 20th November. If you have any questions, please contact doctoralstudies@kcl.ac.uk.

Dr Nicola Byrom is Lecturer in Psychology at Kings’ College London and is conducting research into wellbeing and mental health issues for PhD students. 

In this post, Dr Byrom reflects on some of the issues and advantages that come with the experience of being independent during the PhD.

Dr Nicola Byrom

As part of an Office for Students / Research England funded project with Derby University I’ve had the opportunity to interview PhD students about their experience. It seems a time packed full of challenging balances to navigate. Many students point to the freedom that they have as one of the best parts of being a PhD student; you have the opportunity to create your own profile, to manage your own time, to follow your own interests and motivations.

As with any long project, there are peaks and troughs. At the peaks the independence is exhilarating. In the troughs, the independence can feel overwhelming.  With independence comes a real sense that “this is on me;” that if you don’t work out how to make the experiment work, or how to get a project running, no one else will.

Students have talked to me about the challenges they face around training. Even when working in a large and supportive lab group, it can be hard to find someone to help when you get stuck. It feels like this is because, as everyone specialises, there may genuinely be no one within the group who really understands what you are doing and why you are stuck. Reflecting on this experience, students see the positives; these experiences teach you to have self-confidence – you can, eventually, solve problems on your own. If grit wasn’t a pre-requisite for a PhD, it seems to be something most students feel they’ve developed.

When you are independent, you are also responsible. When things are going well, this can feel great. When problems arise, experiments don’t work, or your line of inquiry hits a dead end, it can feel awful. At these points, it can be difficult to separate personal responsibility for errors (the self-doubt can be quick to creep in) from the reality of research; failure is common. After nearly a decade working in research, I’ve learnt that the only certainty seems to be that most things fail! Failure is part of the process, it is something that we can learn from, but that reality doesn’t make it much easier to bear your first failures.

The feeling of independence, and the positives that accompany this, was not universal. Two situations seem liable to curtail independence. First, where a student has transitioned from working as a research assistant in a laboratory group to completing his/her PhD in this group, there can be challenges making the transition to independence. It can be difficult to let go of previous projects and papers to find time to carve out for your own work. Second, where students have industry funded PhDs and spend some of their time in industry, there may be conflicting ideas about the purpose of a PhD, with industry partners expecting to have more influence over the focus of the research and even the day-to-day activities.

Finally, most PhD students that we’ve spoken to so far identify that there is a limit to this independence; their studies are, after all, directed by their supervisor. Interestingly, students in their later years of study have been describing a process of learning to manage their supervisor; there is a process to work through from looking to the supervisor for direction to truly feeling you own the project.

As a PhD student, do you have independence? Is this a positive thing? Or can it be a challenge? You can share your experience and help us better understand how to support PhD students by visiting our survey page.  

The King’s Doctoral Students’ Association (KDSA) is the recognised representative body of the Postgraduate Research Student community. It is an autonomous body within the KCLSU representative structure. All doctoral students at King’s are automatically members of the KDSA.

The KDSA seeks to make a difference to you and your peers’ education experience, drive change, and bring the postgraduate research student community together.

With a new website that will be ready to launch by end of the month, King’s Doctoral Students Association (KDSA) is recruiting Faculty Leads who will sit on the board of KDSA. The leads will be responsible for and in charge of student welfare for their respective Faculties and will closely work with Departmental Reps.

Roughly, the duties entail:

– Attending monthly KDSA meetings to discuss and approve motions proposed by yourselves/members

– Coordinate with Departmental Reps as the need arises

– Meet Faculty Vice Deans/staff from Centre for Doctoral Studies if need arises

– Attend quarterly PaRC or an equivalent meeting at Faculty level

– Feedback to KDSA Chair/board members on the progress of your work/project on a monthly basis

KDSA is also recruiting two GTA Reps, two Events Coordinators and a Social Media Officer.

The Event Coordinators would plan and implement various events/socials that it will be hosting while the Social Media person would manage the accounts.

These vacancies represent a  fantastic opportunity to gain leadership, decision-making, and communication skills. Beyond that, joining the KDSA board offers you to shape KDSA operations and drive changes in the PGR student experience, and thus allow you to support your peers and colleagues.

You do not need to have prior experience to suit a particular role perfectly as training would be provided but a strong commitment is required from the very beginning.

If you are interested in any of the above positions, please email kdsa@kclsu.org with a brief paragraph (max 200 words) explaining your suitability to, and motivation for the role by end of day on Friday 7^th September 2018. 

It is a truth universally acknowledged that doing a PhD will enrich your life, improve your career, and make you a better, happier person.

Isn’t it?

Certainly, there are few other pursuits that will allow you to dedicate yourself so single-mindedly to a research project, academic question, or experimental project in a field of your choosing. And while many PhD graduates do not go on to become full professors or lecturers in their specialism, the PhD develops to a high degree many of the skills and competencies most valued by employers.

But it is becoming increasingly clear that for many of of the students that do go on to study for a PhD that an improvement in one’s general mental wellbeing is far from guaranteed. As a recent article in the Guardian put it, mental health issues among postgraduate research students are becoming so common that they are now an accepted feature of  academic life. Studies from UC Berkeley and the University of Ghent back up this article with statistics, suggesting high levels of depression, anxiety, and mental distress among PhD students.

We believe PhD students should not have to sacrifice their wellbeing in order to reap the significant intellectual and professional benefits of their doctorate. This is why King’s College London is working in collaboration with the University of Derby and the UK student mental health charity, Student Minds, are working on a major project to develop effective resources that can improve the wellbeing of postgraduate research students.

In order to make this project work, we need you, current PGR students – from as diverse a range of backgrounds possible – to join a student panel at KCL.

Participants on this panel will be asked about:

• Their experience as a PGR student
• How research has changed their relationships
• And how the academic process has affected their work/life balance

Throughout, participants will be asked to reflect on both achievements and challenges in their experience of life as a PGR student.

If you are interested in taking part in this project and sitting on the PGR panel, you can fill out an application form here. This page will also provide you with full details, dates, and other information on the project.

If you have any questions, please contact Dr Nicola Byrom