First-ever Research Week kicks off
Graduate students at the Faculty of Education now have another tool in their toolbox to help their research and careers.
The Education Graduate Students Association (EGSA) has created Research Week. This year’s inaugural event is online and it runs from March 7-11.
“The event was created in response to graduate student feedback,” EGSA president Shannon McKechnie said. “Graduate students wanted more professional development opportunities that would help their research and career prospects.”
The EGSA surveyed students and the week-long event was created based on their feedback. The affair draws on expertise from Western Education and existing programs and services at Western University, McKechnie said.
Students can attend workshops on writing, conference presentations, and publishing while speakers from the Faculty of Education, Western Writing Support Centre, Western Student Experience, Own Your Future Professional Development, and the Canadian Journal for New Scholars in Education will make presentations.
For those who can’t attend the online workshops, they will be posted to the EGSA’s YouTube channel.
“These workshops support students in the activities that are involved with doing research, but aren’t necessarily taught in graduate school curriculum,” McKechnie said. “For example, ‘How do we build regular healthy writing habits? How do conference presentations differ from class presentations? How do I talk about what I do to employers? How does the publishing process work?’”
Research Week also prepares students for the upcoming Robert Macmillan Symposium in Graduate Education (RMSE) at the Faculty of Education. While content is different between these two events, they’re intended to complement each other and serve students in their academic and professional development.
“Research Week is a way to help prepare students to deliver their presentations at RMSE and help them envision how to mobilize their work beyond RMSE as well,” McKechnie said.
McKechnie and RMSE co-chair, Emi Iwaizumi, organized Research Week. Both are PhD Candidates in the Faculty of Education.
