The must, the preferred and the nice to have of a PGR internship

By Sasha Vaniev, PGR Development Events and Communications Intern

In this post, I reflect on my role in the Research Culture and Researcher Development Team halfway through my internship. I am a 2^nd-year international PhD student-parent in the School of Education. My PhD project explores the sociomaterial practices and (f)actors contributing to the teacher development of early career academics. In a nutshell, I study what or who supports or limits them in their journeys to become competent university teachers.  

Throughout my professional career, I have had one particular habit that I am proud of, and I continue to use in every new job I land. That is – setting personal targets for what I want to achieve (personally, in addition to the job description) by the following year in this position. I usually categorise those as:

• The must – what are the ultimate reasons I undertook the position, or, what can’t I help but complete?
• The preferred – what could significantly benefit me in the new position but also be transferred into my future career?
• The nice to have, but I can live without – that’s self-explanatory.

As I started my position here in the Research Culture & Researcher Development (RC&RD) Team in November 2023, I completed my usual goal setting. Looking back, mid-way through, while some of my goals are complete and others are still to be ticked off, I have also experienced some not-so-obvious learning opportunities through my internship. I reflect on these below.

Learning how University Services operate

In line with my academic and professional interests in staff and educational development, one of my musts was to get to know what events, programmes, and initiatives a university can (and perhaps should) offer to its Staff and PGRs and how such a service is organised at the scale of an entire university. Indeed, the RC&RD Team provides a broad spectrum of activities to researchers at the University of Glasgow (UofG) to promote an engaging, fair, and collegial culture where one can succeed and make informed choices about development and careers. However, I was especially interested in understanding the mechanisms that sustain the team’s modus operandi (mode of operating) and which university structures support it.

Now, I am far more aware that regular interaction and partnership work with Research Communications, Public & Community Engagement, Strategic Research Initiatives (research funding), Research Governance, PGR Policy, Research Integrity, Research Impact, and other branches of the Research Services Directorate (as well as cross-university partners and external organisations) are essential to organising effective support for researchers.

• If you are looking for academic or academic-adjacent roles in the future, an internship in University Professional Services provides the opportunity to widen your horizons and understanding of how university service directorates are structured, how programmes and initiatives are designed collaboratively, and how decisions are made. Finally, you get some ‘insider knowledge’ of how colossal university structures operate together to deliver meaningful initiatives to researchers.

Learning about and from a different academic workplace culture

I am still on my way to completing my preferred goals of learning more from my colleagues about their career journeys in educational and staff development, as well as how a central university team functions. One of the valuable learning points of the PGR internship is being exposed to various teams and seeing different examples of academic workplace culture.

During my time as an RC&RD Intern, I have been in the presence of passionate people who, through their attitudes, behaviours, and actions, create a supportive, inclusive working environment, which, in turn, translates into a high-level service for UofG researchers. These workplace values and aspects of working culture, such as openness, honesty, transparency, integrity, and willingness to help, are elements that I appreciate and will take to my next workplace, whatever and wherever it is going to be.

• If you are looking for a high standard of teamwork and leadership, an internship can change your expectations of what constitutes employee support and creative freedom as you have the opportunity to be exposed to new environments. In my team, there is a strong focus on your development as an intern: you set the goals with your line manager, and you get support along the way.
• Additionally, there is lots of freedom and room for creativity. If you have time and capacity, you can create initiatives and implement them with the team’s ideas and resources. This may come as a surprise to some, who perceive that only an academic role offers flexibility and creativity.

Learning new skills while organising events for fellow PGRs

My journey in the PGR Development Events & Comms intern role has so much to offer beyond teamwork and knowledge of broader university structures. As part of my role, I was responsible for creating career-developing events for my peers as part of PhD study in a research-intensive university – which was a new, captivating, and nice-to-have experience for me! So far, I have taken leadership in organising an internationally recognised public speaking competition – Three Minute Thesis or ‘3MT’®, and a PGR peer-to-peer conference – This PhD Life.

These opportunities have developed a wide range of soft and hard skills that are valuable for a future career within or outside of academia, for example:

• Managing a communications campaign to engage large communities of people via  newsletters, social media, and university digital screens;
• Communicating via writing concise but informative emails to people you do not know for a variety of reasons and requests;
• Graphic design of visually appealing and branded imagery, e.g. in Canva;
• Managing large online events with 100+ attendees;
• Delegating tasks and trusting your team to help deliver the event with you (this one I struggled with the most!).

Learning how to balance my PhD, childcare, and my internship

Looking back, I realise that for the first several months, it was quite a bumpy ride of getting started and accustomed to the role’s pace, my colleagues’ expectations, and, more critically, my own expectations towards my performance. On top of that and my PhD project, I was balancing (with varying success) other life priorities and circumstances: infant childcare duties; regular sicknesses brought from the nursery; no family members around; constant worrying about what may happen back home; and generally, the precarious aspects of international PGR studentship.

While making room for all those things was indeed challenging, I tried to remind myself that a PhD is part of life, and life is a part of a PhD, as is the internship. Therefore, it is OK to let some things slip away sometimes, as long as you communicate it to colleagues who have your back and take over in times of need. It is OK to overwork some weeks and underwork other weeks – that’s just the nature of the reality of a PGR internship – acknowledge it and liaise with the line manager. Finally, it is OK to let some things go – not everything should be perfect when you are running an event or a social media campaign – your mental well-being, family, and PhD should always be a priority.

• Finally, I would like to encourage my fellow international PhD students to take up part-time job opportunities. Indeed, the internship gave me a stable source of additional income on top of my UKRI-level scholarship and allowed me to sustain a child and a partner on maternity leave. However, what I learned through my 1.5 years as a PhD student is that part-time opportunities come and go – some desirable ones go away, but then even more desirable ones come up. Don’t get discouraged by rejections – that’s part of the process. Whilst you keep your personal and career interests in front of you and consistently apply, you will get there.