Making a difference...
Published: 24 May 2023
Kang's peer-mentoring initiative
Hello all, I am Kang Xie, a second-year PhD student studying Earth Sciences at the University of Glasgow. I am also the coordinator for our ‘PhD buddy system’ at the School of Geographical & Earth Sciences.
As an international student, I felt isolated when I first arrived in Glasgow during the pandemic, and because the academic environment was new to me. Eventually, with the help of my new friends within the School, I became familiar with the University and this friendly city I now call home. This experience made a real impression on me.
I am settled and happy now, and I am hoping to create a platform to support new PhD students to feel the same. In this system, every new student was paired with a third or fourth-year PhD student to help them familiarise themselves with the study environment and integrate into social activities. I have been in touch with several other PhD students who are supporting me with this. Together, we made great strides with this project last year.
We chose third or fourth-year PhD students because they have been in Glasgow for more than two years and are familiar with other students in the school. After I sent the invitation to the PhD students in our School, more than ten third or fourth-year PhD students joined this system as volunteers. From here, we were able to pair five peer-mentoring pairs. The senior students chatted with the new students, introduced them to others, showed them around the University, and attended social activities with them. They talked with each other and ate out together regularly, and the new students got used to this environment quickly. Their feedback was overwhelmingly positive.
In the future, we plan to organise this activity again to help new postgraduate research students. We are aiming to recruit more volunteers and each newcomer will be paired with two PhD students. Mentors will join the peer monitoring class provided by Student Learning Development, which allows them to reflect on the peer mentoring process and can help them to support new students better, avoiding communication challenges. After the new students come to the campus, we are going to organise an induction for mentors and mentees to meet and know each other.
I would like to thank our volunteers, the peer monitoring group, the staff from the school, and all others for their support so far!
First published: 24 May 2023
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