Gulnahar Begum is a third-year PhD student (Education) in the School of Social Sciences, Education and Social Work, QUB. Her PhD project focuses on the impact of high-stakes testing on teaching and learning English in the context of Bangladesh. Here she describes her role as a Graduate School Community Assistant and gives an insight into what the Thomas J. Moran Graduate School has to offer to students.

When I first enrolled as an MSc student in 2017, I attended a tour of the Graduate School which was a part of the pre-semester event and activities during the induction week. I was amazed by the beautiful building, its history and most of all, the facilities it offers to postgraduate students. I also attended a talk by the Graduate School Dean where she talked about the Five Pillars of the Graduate School and explained how these Five Pillars are translated into the events, activities and training organised by the Graduate School to prepare students for the challenging local and global world. I was intrigued by her talk. I felt that the Graduate School was a treasure trove and I wanted to be a part of it. I wanted to bring my own experience and knowledge to this vibrant community and in return, as an insider, wanted to get myself enriched with the skill of organising events and supporting training, events and activities to be completed successfully. That is why I applied for the Community Assistant role and I was lucky to get the offer and to begin the role in November 2021.

Skills Which Help me in my Role as a Community Assistant

In Bangladesh, I taught English literature to undergraduate students at a university and EFL courses to both undergraduate and postgraduate students at another university and also to various age-group pupils (primary and secondary and adult students) in different educational settings in Japan. In Northern Ireland, I had been involved in teaching children with Special Educational Needs in Primary school settings as well as teaching English to adult immigrants/refugees/asylum seekers at IH Belfast language school.

In all these teaching roles, I have developed many skills, such as decision-making, problem-solving, communicating, planning, preparing and delivering lessons, providing feedback, managing classrooms, active listening, empathy, emotional intelligence, and organisational and time-management skills which were helpful for the CA jobs. As a CA, I like answering students’ queries, helping them solve any issues, organising CA-led events and assisting with the delivery of Graduate School’s regular events.

Helping Students

Answering students’ queries is the most challenging as sometimes the queries are varied and wider-ranged. For example, some students mistake the Graduate School as a place to solve all their academic, student finance and admission-related problems. They send e-mails or make phone calls or come to the reception enquiring about these issues. When I receive these types of e-mails, I forward them to the relevant sectors. When students make phone calls or come to the front desk, I make them understand what the Graduate School does and signpost them to the right place for their queries.

It's wonderful to be able to support students like this in a variety of ways. If I had to break it down to one thing, my one piece of advice to incoming students would be to fully utilize the training, workshops and activities provided by the Graduate School as I can not emphasise enough how crucial these resources will be during your job search and your life after postgraduate study.