Meet the Intern: Karen Gordon

Photo: Karen stopping to smell the flowers

Introducing Me

Hello, my name is Karen, and I am the new PGR Events Intern for 2022-23. I’m really excited to join the team and want to introduce myself.

My Role

I am the person who will be organising many of the main events throughout the year. Events such as This PhD Life, Three Minute Thesis, Love Letter & Visualise Your Thesis. Alongside many more, which I will be sharing with you over the course of the year.

A few weeks ago, we held This PhD Life Conference, and I couldn’t have asked for a better start to the role! So many wonderfully inspiring speakers sharing their knowledge, including a super special keynote from Prof. Alison Phipps. I will be taking her advice of “Joy is a Method” forward with me into this role. It was an excellent first event for me within the team and I can’t wait to get stuck into more.

My PhD

I’m a second-year PhD student completing a psychology thesis within the School of Education.

My research topic is on investigating differences in stress expression between cultural groups within the doctoral researcher community and looking at coping strategies that people utilise. My goal is to identify ways in which different researchers experience stress (psychological or somatic) and identify support that could be implemented during stressful periods to alleviate this. Including support at the personal, institutional and policy level.

I am conducting mixed-methods research (from very stat-driven quantitative studies to using creative research methods) so am also very interested in learning new methodologies, discussing the pros and cons of each and generally sitting right in the middle of the quants/qual arguments. Usually with a biscuit and a brew, enjoying the ping-pong match!

I have tried to get as involved in as much as possible since I started here at UofG last year. I am very community focused and I believe that completing a PhD is too stressful for one person to manage in isolation. Having the support of colleagues and friends has been instrumental to my journey here at UofG so far. Having more opportunity to engage in community networks through my Intern role is something which I am stoked to get involved with and widen this community further.

You will often find me at The School of Education Walk and Talks, Write On’s, PhD Chatters, PGR Walks and as many of the events as I can reasonably attend without getting into trouble! Having these community networks has helped me professionally and personally and I am so happy that I am now able to create events for PGRs to continue building these networks for themselves.

Interests

It can be tricky to keep making time for things you enjoy whilst completing a PhD – but every day I try to make time for something I love outside of the academic bubble. I refuse to get so stressed writing a thesis about reducing stress! The irony can be helpful and snap me right back where I need to be.

I love to eat and share food with people – dinner and drinks with friends is right up there for a perfect evening for me. I have two cats (Lilith and Shrimp) who I adore. They are also great at letting you know when you need to step away from your laptop – missing their dinner time is not an option.

I love trash TV with a passion and my perfect evening in would involve chocolate, some season of The Real Housewives (Beverley Hills is my personal fav) and the cats running around somewhere in the background.

One thing I want to do much more of is explore Scotland. I am ashamed to admit that I haven’t so far, citing the usual excuses of tiredness and work and other commitments over weekend. But this is a front I will do much better on over the next year. So, look forward to pictures of me scaling mountains, coming up!

Photo: Karen and cat looking at snow out window

My Hopes For This Year

My hopes for the year are maybe a little less concrete than could be expected. But these came about after myself and Rachel discussed what we really found important to focus on. Not the long lists of a million jobs to do, but what we really hope to gain in how we work within this role. Not just what we achieve.

So, with this in mind, here are my hopes for the year:

Even during the most stressful periods, do what I know I need to do for myself. Even with the deadlines looming and the email inbox that looks set to detonate, slow down. Do the opposite. Take the lunch break, set realistic goals, make sure I continue prioritising social time. It feels like the opposite of what I should be doing at the time. But it’s all an illusion! Health first, emails second, biscuit and brew third.
Get to know more of the PGR community and expand my circle of colleagues and friends. I have more opportunities now to meet more people and I am really excited to develop new connections within the PGR community.
Develop ways of doing things which work for my brain. I’m a pretty visual worker and having things accessible as an image is a huge help for me. Rather than struggle to make something work, change it. If it is within my remit and capacity, it’s okay to make things easier for yourself. This lesson has taken me longer than maybe expected! But if there is a way of taking strain off, I am all for this.
Finally (and maybe most importantly), create a shareable list of trash TV to share with colleagues who need a boost. This project has been started, watch this space.

Photo: Karen making friends with alpacas

That’s Me

Feel free to reach out to me anytime if you have any questions about any of the events we are running, or if you just want to say hi. You can find me on Twitter or sometimes at the PGR Walks too.

Very much looking forward to getting to know many of you more through the course of the next year, and I am sure you will see my face popping up again soon prior to 3MT.

Have a lovely rest of the month everyone. For the dark nights closing in, I can recommend the comfort food at Bodachs Kitchen wholeheartedly – their coffee and toasted pieces have saved me on many a cold, dark day recently!

See you all soon,

Karen

Karen Gordon is a 2nd-year PhD Candidate in Psychology based in the School of Education. Her work explores types of stress expression within the PGR community. She is the PGR Events Intern 22/23.