‘The Club’ at AUT South

Do you ever feel like your postgraduate research is a lonely task?

We spend so much time alone as researchers – at our desks, on our computers, in our labs – that feelings of isolation can often creep up on us.

Joining a group is a great way to combat that isolation, and ‘The Club’ at AUT South is a terrific example of how something as simple as a monthly get-together can really benefit postgraduate researchers.

The Club is for doctoral candidates either studying at AUT South or living close to AUT South. Meetings generally begin with everyone having the opportunity to informally share their progress over the last month.  The rest of the meeting is run according to the needs of the group. Watch them in action below:

So far meetings have included practices of PGR9 presentations; shared success and commiseration following PGR9 reviews; practices for presentations to academic and industry conferences; three sessions on academic writing (paraphrasing, quoting and summarising), delivered by an expert; a discussion about epistemology and methodology; a discussion about ethics applications; and discussions on writing for publication from a thesis.

The group generally meets on the last Friday of every month. If you’d like to join, get in touch with Dr Kathryn Owler at kowler@aut.ac.nz.

If you’re not a doctoral candidate at South campus, don’t despair – there will be an announcement about other postgrad groups in the very near future!