{"id":2932,"date":"2021-09-21T11:35:14","date_gmt":"2021-09-21T10:35:14","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/blogs.kcl.ac.uk\/english\/?p=2932"},"modified":"2021-09-22T17:56:28","modified_gmt":"2021-09-22T16:56:28","slug":"induction-week-somersetting-takeover-interview-with-dr-carl-kears","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/blogs.kcl.ac.uk\/english\/2021\/09\/21\/induction-week-somersetting-takeover-interview-with-dr-carl-kears\/","title":{"rendered":"Induction Week Somersetting Takeover: Interview with Dr Carl Kears"},"content":{"rendered":"

By Carl Kears and Cornelia Sheppard Dawson<\/strong><\/p>\n

Each year, departing third-year students in our department put together a guide for arriving first years. This year’s magazine – titled “Somersetting” – offers a student perspective on studying English at King’s and addresses some issues of concern for new students. During induction week, the blog will be spotlighting sections of this year’s magazine.<\/em><\/p>\n

First up… Cornelia Sheppard Dawson interviews Dr Carl Kears<\/a>, Head of First Year and Lecturer in Medieval Literature.<\/em><\/p>\n

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What does your role as head of first year mean for students?<\/strong><\/p>\n

It means that there is another person to come and talk to, in addition to your personal tutor, lecturers or seminar leaders, about anything to do with being a first-year student. I have an office hour that is set aside for first years, which means that students can come by and have a chat. As head of year, I am also involved with the Skills and Support for your English Degree (SSED) programme, made up of sessions that run throughout the year, covering things like getting started at university, or beginning essays \u2013 I run a few of these and it\u2019s where I get to first meet a lot of students. Finally, being head of year also means that I work closely with first-year reps, taking in and responding to feedback from the year group at large. It\u2019s great!<\/p>\n

What\u2019s something the students can look forward to in first year?<\/strong><\/p>\n

Wow. Well, as a new student of English at King\u2019s, you\u2019re going to learn so much over the next three years. There\u2019s a writer (or a host of writers), or a period of literature, or a poem, or a thinker, that you haven\u2019t met yet that will change the way you look at the world and alter the way you take it in or respond to it.<\/p>\n

The first-year modules will open a rich, diverse, and dynamic landscape of literature for you, from experimental new poetry to non-canonical \u2013 or what the first-year English module on \u2018Writing Race, Writing Gender\u2019 calls \u2018para-canonical\u2019 \u2013 literature. You will even read some of the most fragmentary, ruined, and mysterious oldest English writings. Some of it will pass you by. You will wrestle with some material. You will dislike some of it. Some of the literature you will study won\u2019t speak to you. It\u2019s worth embracing all of this. You will find something you want to know more about. And, when you do, you have the space and the expertise all around you to pursue your interests.<\/p>\n

Something you will begin to enjoy as a first year is the sense of collaboration that grows from thinking with people in the classroom: seminars are there for trying out in-progress ideas, for developing and sharing them. These are creative spaces, too, where we can craft new responses, question how and why we\u2019re examining our material, and do things together.<\/p>\n

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What\u2019s something that first years always worry about that they don\u2019t need to?<\/strong><\/p>\n

Some first-year worries only dissipate as time passes (e.g., I can say \u2018you don\u2019t have to read absolutely everything listed on a module every week\u2019 or \u2018it\u2019s fine if you couldn\u2019t finish the reading, or do it, it\u2019s there for you to come back to when you can\u2019 but it takes time to
\nget used to having a whole degree before you, and it takes time to find out how you work best as a critical and creative thinker at university).<\/p>\n

When I started university as an undergraduate (at King\u2019s, actually!), I moved to London from a very working-class environment in northeast England. I was the first person in my family to have even considered university education. At first, it was very overwhelming: my fellow students seemed to know so much about how things worked (all those new university online systems! All of that reading that didn\u2019t make any sense to me!), while my first tutors were asking me to think about literature in ways I\u2019d never expected. But the more time that passed, and the more I discussed things with my lecturers and my peers, I realised that I could talk to people in my year group about how I didn\u2019t understand that theory, or particularly like that critic, and could carry that into my classes for discussion. There was time to explore, to find things out, to visit things and see things and ask questions and to develop my thinking. I was given the opportunity to carve a path, to pursue the writing and art that was most compelling to me.<\/p>\n

What\u2019s one piece of advice you want to give the new first years?<\/strong><\/p>\n

If things feel as though they are getting on top of you, or even if it seems like university is moving in slow motion, or just not right at first, remember that time is on your side and there are a range of people to talk to in the Department. You are going to learn so much.
\nSo much will change, both slowly and quickly. Take your time. Visit some tutors in office hours. The first year is about getting a sense of things and exploring what\u2019s out there. You will find that word, or that passage, or that genre of literature that you didn\u2019t even imagine you would fall for, but it\u2019s going to happen over the course of three years (three years!). Don\u2019t rush. Take it in. Enjoy yourself!<\/p>\n

That wasn\u2019t really one piece of advice, but there you go!<\/p>\n

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The full magazine can be found here: Somersetting Magazine<\/a>. Check back tomorrow for more coverage on the department blog!<\/p>\n

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Blog posts on King\u2019s English represent the views of the individual authors and neither those of the English Department, nor of King\u2019s College London.
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