Blogs

“But what do you actually do?”

As PhD students, this is a question we get on a regular basis, from friends, family or even other students. Completing a PhD is very different to an undergraduate degree, or even a master’s. There isn’t a specific topic that you’re learning about alongside the rest of your cohort. Sometimes you may be studying something completely new, which no one else knows anything about (except hopefully your supervisor).

Like the rest of Christchurch and New Zealand, the events of 15 March shook the University of Canterbury to its core. Nothing can prepare for the shock and outpouring of emotion that comes with experiencing something like what we witnessed. I think for many of us, it was only in the weeks following the terrorist attacks on two local mosques that we began to process it. We were all asking ourselves why? How could this happen?

Over the past four years, I have spent approximately 36 weeks on eight internships at some amazing companies. Sometimes it has meant that I have missed out on holidays, festivals and experiences with my friends but overall the sacrifice has been worth it.

A college is not just about studying, partying and networking; it’s about friendship and companionship. Harvard University has a habit of churning out impressive and well-educated individuals, but it is the personal relationships between students that form the underlying fabric of the institution.

When devastating news affects a certain group within the student body, such as the occurrence of a mass shooting, it is crucial that faith and non-faith Harvard community members alike come together as one.

I came to study in Paris as part of an exchange programme for the fourth year of my BSc in chemistry. It was a partnership between University of British Columbia.

Visiting France had been my dream for many years. I was enrolled in a school French immersion programme from an early age and grew up speaking French and learning about the Francophone culture. 

As a human physiology student of Bowen University, which is located in Iwo, a town in the southwestern part of Nigeria, I tend to prioritse my learning over other things.

Early mornings

I get up every day at 6am or 6.30am, and either attend a mass devotion or observe my personal devotion.

Around 7.30am, I am ready for the day. If I have any classes or an undergraduate student supervision scheduled for the day I will head to my faculty first.

I have always been interested in university life, mostly because I never had the opportunity to go myself.

When I finished high school I enrolled into a smaller, more affordable college to do my journalism degree. As an outsider I believed that university students seemed to have it all. They looked so carefree and as though they were having the time of their lives. It was the fashionable clothes, the newest gadgets, the endless clubbing and meeting people from different cultures and backgrounds that made it seem that way.

I’m pretty certain that when you made the decision to go to university, at least one person said to you “it will be the best time of your life”. They’ll tell you that you’ll go on crazy nights out, make heaps of friends and have more fun than you’ve ever had. Ever. 

But what if this doesn’t happen? What if you end up making only one friend? What if you aren’t going to loads of house parties? What if you aren’t turning up to 9am lectures still drunk from the night before? 

As a cellular and molecular biology major at the University of Michigan, I had always thought I would end up in a starched lab coat, struggling to steady a pipette. I needed experience in order to pursue lab research in the future but I was crushed when my application was rejected from the STEM branch of Michigan’s undergraduate research programme. 

Luckily, my Spanish instructor informed us of an opening for students in humanities research, led by Spanish professors. Although Spanish was my minor, I decided that a humanities lab was better than no lab at all and applied.

High school students in Albania often dream of studying at universities around the world. We imagine American colleges, British lectures, and student life in other European countries. Many of us don’t make it that far – often because we simply can’t afford it – but I was lucky enough to be offered a place on the economics master’s course at the University of Cologne.