A blog post by Meg Kiseleva (PhD Organizational Psychology)
I joined Birkbeck as a PhD student in January 2019. Being one of the few people who started halfway through the traditional academic year, initially I found it quite a solitary experience. Luckily, the BGRS were very supportive when Alex Leggett and I decided to start the Birkbeck PhD Network within the Students’ Union to help PhD students meet, network, and find information and support.
For a typical Birkbeck student – busy, juggling many responsibilities, often in employment alongside their studies – finding ways to connect with others may be an overwhelming experience. While the BGRS training events are a great opportunity to meet other PhD students across College, the networking is usually done within the constrains of a workshop: you may chat with someone or even have a coffee together during the break but then usually just rush off to your next appointment.
Within the PhD Network, we are trying to provide an informal space for meeting others, socialising, discussing our experiences as PhD students, and supporting each other on the PhD journey. While we cannot physically meet while the COVID-19 restrictions are in place, we are trying to make up for it with our WhatsApp chat, which you can join by dropping us a line at SU-PhD-Network@bbk.ac.uk, and Facebook group.
Our aim is to bring together people from different departments, different backgrounds, and with different experiences to enable a deep multidisciplinary conversation. Besides, talking to people from other disciplines sometimes opens an unexpected perspective on your own research (and meetups with other PhD students provide an opportunity to practise your “elevator pitch”!). Serious talk aside, we also try to make sure everyone has a comfortable space just to discuss anything the PhD community can provide support with.
On top of that, the Network frequently acts as a point of contact between the PhD community and the BGRS since we can collect comments and queries and bring them up with the BGRS via email or at PGR reps meetings anonymously.
Please use the links above to get in touch and we look forward to welcoming you to our community.
