Postgrad Group?

By Kim Brown

Hi all,

Sylvia and I are attending workshops with the SLC on how to set up and lead a postgrad group. Before she went up to Chch, we had a chat about approaching other postgrads to find out a) are you interested in a postgrad group, and b) what type of group would you see as being useful?

Here are few things to consider as suggested by the SLC:

• there are big diferences between what Masters and PhD students need
• students at different stages of their PhD study often look for different things from their groups (if they can attend at all!)
• if ain't useful/interesting/fun/ all or any of these things people won't come to the group - keep your finger on the pulse of what your members want from your group
• we cannot be all things to all people

So, sounds a bit like life really.

I have started to ask people what they think about a postgrad group and the types of activities that would appeal. Below is a contextualised report of responses:

First year PhD student - make the offer of membership open to all postgrads enrolled at UOCE; focused writing sessions where we actually sit and write for a given period of time (could book a group study room @ Robertson), after session retire to a convivial establishment for coffee or the like to review our writing; coffee chats where we invite a guest speaker to moring tea for informal talks on matters of interest, for example, invite Martin Tollich to talk about ethics; meet as a group one a month.

Finishing PhD student - less able to commit time to a group; look for links to what is happening elsewhere in the university, for example, Festival of Graduate Research (aka postgrad month); informal writing sharing sessions where students share writing amongst themselves.

There is also agreement that postgrads at UOCE would like to raise our profile in the department and amongst other students studying here.

Thoughts, ideas, responses? If I've not spoken with you yet, I shall be coming your way soon!