Emma Russell
When signing up to be a student volunteer for the British Conference of Undergraduate Research at the University of Nottingham one of the things I was most excited about was being involved in the organisation of such a prestigious event. Though I knew it would be hard work and I would gain a valuable insight of how an academic conference works, I didn’t realise that I would have such a broad range of responsibilities, from running for Sellotape and paperclips, to being a human signpost, to chairing a conference. This quickly became clear to me once training began and the range of things the team were to learn became evident.
On the first day of the training we went through the importance of social media for a conference. Though there is obviously a huge administrative side to organising events, keeping in touch and available through social media has become more and more important. As well as this, creating a lasting impression after the event is over would help to creating a lasting footprint of the conference at the university of Nottingham. It was in this session that I realised the extent of how many different social media outlets there are and how easy they are to make. Having already used WordPress for various blogs over the years, I was interested more in learning about Twitter and Instagram, which have now become more prevalent in the time I invest to researching art events and galleries.
That is something else that I have enjoyed about the training I have relieved for the conference, it hasn’t just been about getting each member of the team ready to take part as a helper for the conference by helping us to incorporate the experience more widely into our working lives, such as improving our career prospects. For one of the training sessions we were told to bring a CV with us so that we could receive advice from a lecturer individually about how to improve it and throughout the training we have also been told about how to incorporate working at the conference into a CV. Whilst doing this session, we also looked at each other’s CV’s, which helped me, personally, because, as a student, I never get to see those of other students. I know what other students do on my course because we talk about it as friends but seeing a CV is different as it is the application of the things we get involved with that can make either a good CV or a bad one. It also made me realise their range of other opportunities that the University of Nottingham offers, such as entrepreneurial Advantage Award modules that have wider implications in that they lead to more opportunities for that student. It made me realise that getting involved leads to more opportunities to do so.
Having had training to be a student helper at the British Conference of Undergraduate Research I would feel much more confident in taking part in one myself with my own research. I was encouraged by a friend who is taking part in the conference to also put in an application but I didn’t feel like anything I could do would be good enough, thinking that it was for older undergraduates. Having taken part in the training I wouldn’t hesitate to put in a proposal for the next conference as I now know more about the procedure and what is expected of the speakers. This, in turn, would improve my cv, my confidence and would lead onto other opportunities in the future.
One thing I was worried about, however, was the technical support side of the role. I realised that this would be a part of it but I didn’t realise that we would be expected to be on hand to organise those speaking in the conference. This fear was alleviated, however, as the team were all taught in small groups about how to use the recording systems in operation at the university and how to set up the computers. This may seem like no small thing to a generation that has been brought up in schools where part of the curriculum involves compulsory studies in ICT, but this was the university system that would be entirely foreign, which the team were then expected to be able to use where time is limited. This was taught step-by-step whilst each of us got up in front of the rest of the team to deliver a two minute speech about a research topic of our choice.
It was this point that made me realise that the research that I am doing for my dissertation is actually worth speaking about to other people who may not come from the department of art history as it became clear that other people were interested and that the research I do is worthwhile for not just getting my degree. I think it was this that also made me more passionate about my degree, in that, I realised that I can articulate my thoughts and ideas in a two minute practice speech in front of a room of strangers and make them interested in what I am saying.
This brings me to the last, and most important, reason that I wanted to be involved in the conference and that is that I would get to hear a wide range of research that students are getting involved with, bringing in their own ideas into a field of knowledge and pushing the boundaries. This is a thought that excites me and makes me want to push further and get more involved with my subject, researching new ideas and sharing these with others.
Emma Russell
bcur14nottingham 