Remediate and ATBEST Fellows bask in the sunshine outside the Lanyon Building at QUB
Our ESR at the University of Turin, Neha, sent us a brilliant summary of the first Remediate Summer School, held at QUB in June 2016:
Summer School: Training and learning outside Laboratory
Recently we had summer school in Belfast organized by the Remediate project team. Although the summer school agenda was a conglomerate of multifaceted segments ranging from history of industrial activities, soft skill sessions, risk assessment studies, 3 minute thesis presentations, site visits etc, still I felt a bit reluctant to travel from Torino to Belfast in the summer. To attend I took a taxi at 2:00 am, waited four hours for a flight from Brussels to Belfast, and roamed around the city centre to find a travel adaptor. After all this, when I reached the University Residence at around 6:00 in evening the only thought that came to my mind was ‘Why?? What’s the use of this?? I could have taken courses in my university for developing scientific skills and taken some memberships at Social Clubs for brushing up social skills and here I am doing everything to attend Summer School.’ And then the activities related to summer school started just after one hour. No!! It was not a lecture but an informal dinner at a Mexican Restaurant where our group could meet another Researchers group who were working on biogas facilities and was on the final stage. There I realized that even the students who are going to defend their thesis in just some months also have smiling faces and can talk about things other than their PhD topics. The reason that summer school was worth all the efforts is not limited to only meeting new people but goes beyond this which I found in the four days of fun and learning in the city of Belfast.
Learning science is easy if history is appreciated:
There were some lectures about history of Belfast, the course of industrial development, the spread of Gasworks in Europe which actually made it simple to understand how contamination is linked to source. It was much easier to conceive the mutations in contamination process after the development of activities was unclouded.To make it more understandable there was a bus city tour organized in evening and a site visit at one of the gasworks site and a landfill site where we got chance to see the Belfast and to understand the pathways of pollution.
Helps to know other researchers and inculcates the feeling of team player:
The conventional routine of a researcher’s life seldom leaves space for thinking about making friends and knowing each other. Even most of us end up doing desktop dining when the deadlines are at close quarters.During our five days stay at Belfast most of us ate together. Waiting for each other, walking together in a herd, dragging someone to reach destination earlier, playing weird games in the evening, talking in night and watching movie in the kitchen until everyone sleeps were some of the pleasures that made us lively again. The time spent together turned the professional welding into close friendships easily.
Gives time for brushing up networking skills:
While reading articles and scientific journals every one of us dreams about publications incessantly. Looking at profiles in ResearchGate and thinking ‘How will I feel if I have that many citations?’ consumes our mind to a level where ResearchGate becomes the most adopted social platform along with Facebook. We think about networking skills only when we see our Professors exchanging their views with other professors.The sessions on Tweets about our research, networking opportunities, way to approach another researcher during a conference, use of blogs told us about the plethora of opportunities available to us for discussing about our research apart from ResearchGate.
Allows the leisure to see bigger pictures of one’s own research:
Most of us work on things which have depth and solve a particular challenge of a wider picture. Working everyday on the same precise area makes it easy to forget the colossal effect it has on the broader scale.The sessions that were closely linked to our own areas, the basic conceptual model development lessons, 3 minute video presentations reinvigorated the process of appreciating the bigger pictures of the research. It also made it easier to view the different areas in which our own research can proceed or other ideas that can be included in our projects too.
Lots of opportunities for future collaborations:
Discussing and sharing ideas on the widespread areas, meeting the scientists from different specializations, viewing the industrial use of the research, listening to workshops from career mentors not only gave chance for further collaborations but also reminded us not just to think about our careers after completing the PhD but also to plan it wisely and work towards it from an early stage.
All in all sharing ideas outside the laboratory turned out to be super fun.
