Before I talk a little about my experience of this year’s course conference, here’s my recommendation to future students:
If you’re able to attend, then do so!
It was a very interesting and useful two and a half days. This year the event was held in Stamford Court at the university and included a talk from a former student, interactive workshops on leadership selection and ergonomics, advice on the dissertation process, help with quantitative and qualitative research methods and a presentation on chartership. The chance to meet 1:1 with your personal tutor or dissertation supervisor was also offered. Just over a dozen students from both the first and second years were able to attend, some of whom had flown more than halfway around the world to be there, and others, like me, who’d only had to brave the vagaries of the M1 to get to Leicester.
The course content was excellent, and the ability to chew the fat with both tutors and students alike outside of the more formal sessions was particularly valuable. Being a distance learner can be a challenging experience at times, so simply being able to put faces to names should make it easier to approach someone to talk to if I need to in future I think.
And yes, the socialising was great too. The quiz on Thursday evening certainly helped us to get to know each other a little better and I think that I may have given the impression late in the bar on Friday night that I was ready to lead a tank convoy down the M1 and take over the government of the country. But as I appear to be writing this from home and it was the usual suspects that were being interviewed on the Andrew Marr show this Sunday morning rather than me, I suspect that it didn’t happen. Perhaps it was simply the red wine and whisky talking …
So it’s back to reality today and I’ve started to pull some readings together to help me with the first ergonomics module assignment due in on the 12th May. However, I’m already counting down the days until next year.
This article was originally written for the University of Leicester Student Blogs, 6th April 2014.