Tag: metabolismdigestionandreproduction

My experience at the ‘Careers Talk with a Difference’

My name is Niamh Sayers and I’m a third year PhD student based at Hammersmith Hospital in the Department of Metabolism, Digestion and Reproduction, and also a Student Rep for this cohort. As I am nearing the end of my PhD (as are many of the friends I started with) I realised we may all be looking for things we want to do after our PhD, therefore I decided to organise this ‘Careers Talk with a Difference…’. We attend many scientific talks during our PhDs, from Work in Progress’ to conference seminars, but I realised we do not have access to many talks outside of the realms of science. So, I decided to organise a careers talk with a renowned public speaker to give some insight into other forms of communication besides scientific.

All postgraduate students were invited, across both the Hammersmith and White City campuses. The event was held in the IRDB seminar room. Drinks were provided upon arrival and pizza was ordered for the networking session after the talk had been given. The talk was held on Wednesday 4th March 2020.

I invited renowned public speaker Matt Black to talk at our University to the postgraduate students to give us an introduction into another way of thinking about the world and potentially help us in the next big steps of our career paths. Matt Black spoke about finding a path that is right for you and your motivations, and finding something that suits you, emphasising most importantly doing something that YOU choose you want to do. He used examples from his own personal career journey and spoke about Greta Thunberg as an inspiration for taking on big challenges.

There were many positive outcomes from the talk, one student even commented they were influenced to apply for a PhD position after Matt Black spoke about the idea that we choose the life we build and the direction we go in. I agree, in that he reminded me of the importance of choosing to do something I am passionate about, rather than following on down a path already trodden/laid out for me, based on what I “think” I should be doing. He also convinced me that anything is possible, if you choose the right mindset.

For me personally, I found Matt Black very engaging and enthusiastic, and I can see with his energy how he has gotten so far in the public speaking domain, which was excellent to witness, as well as learn from some the techniques he used to engage the audience. In addition to seeing his encapsulation of the audience, Matt gave me plenty to ponder over; my goals in life; what makes me happy and what incentivises me, so I left feeling thoughtful about my next steps after completing my PhD.

The aim of this event was to bring in a thought-provoking speaker with experience outside of science and to get students thinking about potential career moves after their postgraduate degree. Matt Black engaged with the audience and asked questions throughout, he also stayed behind and was approached to talk to by many groups of students in the networking event after. The feedback from the event was that many students left feeling thoughtful and encouraged, and there were many positive comments about the speaker and the event at large, with a highlight being one student even referencing this talk affirming her idea of wanting to apply for a PhD position next year.

All-in-all I am very happy with how the event turned out. Many postgraduate students attended, from a range of departments across the Hammersmith and White City campuses, and I will be looking for more speakers of a similar nature to invite to Imperial to aid tough decision-making by students about themselves and their future careers with another careers talk with a difference.

Many thanks to the Graduate School for funding this event and making it possible.

 

Our very merry meeting across the new-found divisions at South Kensington

Following the considerable restructure within the Department of Surgery and Cancer and new-found Department of Metabolism, Digestion and Reproduction, in a time where many aspects of PGR life have seemed up in the air, Simone and I (Kate) decided to unite everyone for a single evening.  The aim was to encourage new friendships, to promote collaborative opportunities and reinforce the sense of community across PGR students at South Kensington. For the first time, students, post-docs and supportive PI’s took to a cosy boutique hotel in Hammersmith to meet, eat and be merry!

The evening started with the classic Secret Santa, where our personal Santa Claus facilitated the exchange of gifts. This gave people the chance to find out more about colleagues they hadn’t potentially met before and represented the perfect opportunity to introduce the new PhD students to the Departments.

Following the many laughs at unconventional gifts, we moved to a close-by venue to begin our evening. The turnout was fantastic! A large number of students joined the event, not only new PhD students of the Divisions but also students based on other campuses who hadn’t yet felt integrated with the rest of the PGR community. One of the main aims for the event was to get students to meet each other. To overcome any nerves, we provided Christmas crackers along with food and encouraged students to pull them with people they hadn’t met before and break the ice using the jokes inside. 

Another aim of the event was to make sure students knew who they could go to with technical issues, as often people down the hall or across your desk may have solutions to your problems or have faced the same struggles. This large-scale event allowed students to get together and have these conversations. Additionally, colleagues from the National Phenome Centre, who are integrated with many students’ projects,  were invited to inform students of their capacity to support their work. I also finally got the opportunity to introduce myself to colleagues I have seen several times around the lab but felt it wasn’t the right time to spark up conversation, some of these colleagues working on similar instrumentation as myself, highlighting the importance of community building events such as this. With this in mind, we are incredibly grateful to the Imperial Graduate School and the Research community fund made available to us, without which this event would not have been possible.

The final stage of the night was to cut loose and really enjoy each other’s company. Dancing was heavily encouraged, with the manager of the venue giving us full reign of music control – balancing the evening between friendship, food and fun!

Feedback from attendees was overwhelmingly positive! New students have now formed relationships with many of the existing PGR students and they will develop these connections over the coming months to years of their PhD. The next step for all of us will be to support each other during these sometimes stressful and demanding years of our PhD. We are now surer than ever that despite working independently and across different campuses, we are a single community ready to support each other.