Month: February 2018

Woahh, we’re halfway there…..

/ Mackenzie

Hello again,

We’re halfway through the term already, and life is certainly getting busier!

On the academic side, I’ve been narrowing down topics for my essays and meeting with lecturers to try and formulate a question. I have two 3000 word essays in week 10 and then a 5000 word essay (and of course my dissertation) due in after Easter at the end of April, so I won’t be short of things to do in the next few weeks! After that, I’ll “only” have five exams and then it’ll be the end of my undergraduate degree, which is a scary thought – I remember moving onto campus in my first year as if it was only yesterday…

It’s not all been coursework though! At the end of week four, I travelled to Nottingham for the weekend for a competition with the Trampolining Club. It was a little bit stressful and really tiring, but still so much fun! We stayed overnight and took part in the social with the other universities, which was really lovely as everyone gets along so well at competitions. However, as social sec, it was interesting to see how well I could herd twenty three people around a new city without losing them!

Valentine’s day has been and gone, and this year my boyfriend and I actually celebrated (albeit a bit late). Lancaster has plenty of opportunity for romantic clichés. Instead, we ate far too much tapas and threw shapes down the ‘Gaunt with a few pints of plum porter to the best funk band this side of South Carolina.

Opportunities at Lancaster

/ Pietro

Hi everyone!

 

This week, I’m going to to tell you a bit more about some of the opportunities you can find here at Lancaster if you’re interested in gaining new skills, improving your employability, and put what you study into practice. Among the projects I’ve taken part in over the last couple of years, there’s two I’d definitely recommend: the Richardson Institute Internship Programme and the Lancaster Mentoring Programme.

The Richardson Institute is the oldest Peace Studies research centre in the UK, and it is based at Lancaster University. Every year, it offers an internship programme directed at students in their second and third year, which starts in October/November and ends in June. Students get to work with external organisations, such as International Alert, Maslaha, the Institute for Strategic Dialogue, and RadicalisationResearch, to produce research reports on socially relevant topics. Last year, for example, I worked in a group of about 6 people, tackling issues to do with injustice in the UK education system. I found the internship particularly valuable, in that it allowed me to gain research experience outside of the sort of research you get to do for your degree.

The second opportunity I mentioned is the Mentoring Programme. This project, too, is run every year, and it helps you gaining a better understanding of what to do after uni; or, if you know that already, it allows you to sharpen your knowledge of your chosen career path. Students get paired with professionals in the field that they express an interest in, and they then meet their mentors on a regular basis, learning about their job, about how to pursue specific careers, how to gain experience relevant to particular jobs, how to write a good CV, etc. For me, the Mentoring Programme has been very helpful: my mentor helped me gaining a better idea of my future plans, aided me with choice of postgraduate study, and gave me tips about how to do well in applications.

I think it’s important to study in a place where you can find opportunities like the ones I’ve just described. They allow you to understand what you like doing, what your potential is, and what you’re good at: all things that is in general highly beneficial to know, but perhaps particularly so when you need to decide what to do with your life after uni.

Week 12

/ Helen Caton

Hello again,

 

I hope that you have all had a good Christmas break and that 2018 has started well.

 

The term at Lancaster has started well and it is difficult to believe that we are already in the third week of term, where did the time go! Despite it still being early days things are already very busy. One highlight for us all in the department was hosting our first applicant visit day of this year. It was really great to meet so many of you personally and get to answer questions that you had about Lancaster, the courses available and university life in general. Thank you for all of you that could make it, it was great to see you and for those who are coming to our upcoming visit days we all really look forward to welcoming you for the day!

 

This week the Politics Society, in cooperation with the Jewish Society hosted Stephen Breuer, a Hungarian Holocaust survivor. It was a very moving event to attend and it was humbling to hear first-hand of the experiences that Stephen and his family endured during one of the darkest chapters of human history and the chance to hear his message of acceptance and tolerance was a remarkable opportunity. We were also very honoured to be able to ask questions after the talk and it was an exceptionally special evening all-round.

 

My studies are also beginning to pick-up and I am in the process of trying to narrow down ideas for my dissertation. This is stressful to say the least, but it is also a great opportunity to be able to look in detail at topics that interest me, and it is really exciting to get the chance to take full ownership of my degree and decide for myself what I want to dedicate time to studying in detail.

 

Until next time…

 

Michael