Mix it up a little…

Hello everyone,

I hope you are enjoying your summer and for those of you who are required to work over the summer, I hope you have been able to enjoy some of the nice weather (although so far this week it has taken a turn!).

For this post, I wanted to share a little bit about my conference experience at the 44th Annual British Society of Gerontology Conference in Newcastle. I attended with other members of the Centre for Innovative Ageing and while I am not going to go into a lot of detail about the speakers and talks I wanted to share some of the things that I took away from being an attendee at the conference.

What I found refreshing was to be able to find out about the latest work and developments taking place in my field of research and academic interests. I think sometimes that as a student you can get caught up in your own work/ research and within the Swansea University bubble.  Therefore, to not only travel outside of Swansea but to be able to hear noted academics and fellow students present on current research and developments in your field can almost give you a renewed vigour towards your own research.

At times you also get the chance to network with other academics as well as those in the professional sector. This can give you a great opportunity to discuss current topics or your own work and potentially get an alternative perspective (which is sometimes helpful when doing your own research because at times you can almost become too close to a project and an outsider’s view can help you develop ideas).

So, if you are able to attend conferences or seminars or talks related to your topic, I would encourage you to do so. Even if you talk to other students within your discipline, it can be a great help as you are working on your thesis or projects of a similar nature.

I also wanted to congratulate those from Swansea University who presented at the conference. Unfortunately, I was not able to see them in person but the feedback that I heard from others was very positive.

Thank you for reading.