Both the Graduate School and Academic Supervisors have worked tirelessly to support PGR students throughout the time that the University of Suffolk Campus has been closed due to COVID19.
The University wide response to the pandemic was quick and efficient and there has been no exception to this within our PGR offering. With the support of our academic facilitators, the Researcher Development Programme has been adapted to take place using entirely online workshops. High level supervisory support has also continued seamlessly with the use of online platforms such as Microsoft Teams.
Please see the below for some testimonials from students, requested in May 2020.
| "Just to say the support of all UOS staff, including but definitely not exclusively the PGR support team and academic staff, has been great. I appreciate the challenges that the University is facing so well done and am looking forward to calmer times for all." - Peter |
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"I work in a medical department that now focuses on COVID - needless to say, the past three months has been probably the most intense and most stressful working experience of my life. I've had to work round the clock, meaning my studies have been neglected. My supervisors have been amazing - they have kept in touch and been nothing but positive in their support and interactions. At one point, I was feeling so overwhelmed and so behind I just wanted to bury my head in the sand. The fact that my supervisors were out there and available for me helped me deal with the fear of failure, and despite the heavy workload, with their support, I started checking in with my studies regularly again - amazingly, I found that even half an hour, writing a few lines, reading a few papers, has kept my mind active and present in the project, and I've had some real breakthrough ideas that have made me more excited than ever before about it! On reflection, doing this PhD has actually given me something that makes me really happy in an otherwise really stressful time - I think I would have been much more lost without it, and without my supervisors! Also, my graduate school sent the most amazing email early on in this process that said it was important to remember I am not just working from home, I am working from home in a pandemic. I was self-isolating at the time, and that email made such a difference to how I was feeling. Being a part of something, receiving supportive messages, it just meant so much to me, and made me so glad that I'd taken the choice to be a student again and part of this university." - Laura |
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"I think both the graduate school and my supervisors have been great during the current situation. I have been finding it difficult to get motivated but the emails from Katrina and my supervisors have really helped boost my motivation and keep me somewhat on track. I’ve not attended many training sessions, but the ones I have attended have been great. In addition to this, my primary supervisor arranged for a strength and conditioning coach to present a lecture on training and monitoring elite skiers throughout their training season. As the Sport Science Symposium was cancelled, it was great to see my supervisor arranging something like this for the students." - Bradley |
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"I’m really happy to give testimony about the high-quality learning opportunities you set up for us. In this particular period, I had more choice than before to learn from my home and I’m happy to see that Graduate School was able to transform a problem in an opportunity, showing in first person what a PhD needs to do when encountering difficulty during his or her study’s pathway." - Antonio |
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"I think that the Graduate School should be commended for the amount of effort put in to move training online, it has been really helpful and beneficial, not only for our learning and developmental experience, but for being able to talk to others about research and having the opportunity to connect with staff members to share ideas. Thank you!" - Katie |
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"I can't fault the support I've received from my two supervisors. They are genuinely interested and supportive in what I'm doing and I've received good and encouraging advice throughout my first year. I came to UoS with quite a bit of work and study experience at other HE institutions but this is the first place that I've encountered such consideration. And actually this is the first time in a long time that I've enjoyed what I'm doing and feel I might have a contribution to make. With a new university opportunities don't all begin at once, but I would have come to UoS earlier if I had realised PGR study now takes place here, too." - Anne |