We have another guest post for you today – this time from Andrew Boynton from the King’s Experience team. Andrew is here to tell you a bit more about the King’s Undergraduate Research Fellowship (KURF) scheme, which seeks applications annually during March.
The Careers Service is running the King’s Undergraduate Research Fellowship scheme again this year, providing undergraduate students with the opportunity to work as Research Assistants at King’s over the summer.
There are a range of projects across the different departments at King’s to suit students’ interests. Previous Fellowship holders have published peer-reviewed academic journal articles and conducted major laboratory research, to give some examples. Projects last between 4 – 8 weeks over the summer and students are paid a bursary of £250 per week to support them with living costs during their fellowship. We are currently receiving project proposals from academics and student applications will open in March.
The Undergraduate Research Fellowship Scheme (KURF) is one of our experiential learning programmes, which is defined as “learning through reflection on doing.” Experiential learning is so useful in helping students make good career plans and understand the employability assets that they are going to offer future employers – be they academic or any other. As part of completing the research fellowship, students are enrolled on the Research Award. The award aims to develop students’ generic and transferable skills in relation to teamwork and their communication skills, along with encouraging students to reflect on their learning experiences through their research.
We caught up with the class of 2015 to find out where they are now.
- Asra Alwandi is now a Doctor at East and North Hertfordshire NHS Trust with an interest in Obstetrics and Gynaecology and Paediatrics. Her project was titled “Metallomic profiling of urine for biomarkers of traffic exposure in children living in Central London.”
- Claire Akkaoui is a Researcher at Control Risks in Dubai. Control Risks is a specialist risk consultancy that helps to create secure, compliant and resilient organisations. Her research was titled “The Tunisian Experiment: Educating the First Generation of Democratic Citizens.”
- Finally, Angus Wood is a Communications Officer at King’s! His project was titled “US-Vietnamese Relations during the First Republic: A British Perspective.”
Applications for KURF open during the month of March, and close around the start of April. Make sure to pay the King’s Experience website a visit to find out more about KURF and the research projects you can apply for, before applications close!
The scheme is highly competitive and so we would encourage students to also consider looking at other research opportunities. Further details of some of these are available on our website.