This is me welcoming myself back to this university. For those of you who remember me from the last time I used to blog here, Hi! and I’d say you’ve waited too long to join this university 😀 I’ve had a fantastic time sharing my student life experience and helping students with their decisions to join the university the last time. I am more than excited now to share my experiences as a research student and give you some more insights into what grad life is like at the university.

I am Sadhana, from Mysore. I’m a first-year PhD student in Psychology. I’ve studied bachelors in architecture in Mysore, towards the end of which I decided to specialise in something that is more people-centric. I did a year-long masters (MSc) in Environmental Psychology at the University of Surrey starting in 2017. This was my first experience of living and studying abroad. Along with struggling to keep up with psychological theories and the weather, I also got to do many fun activities across the year. I worked (and still do) part-time as a student ambassador and I’ve blogged about many of my experiences here which you can look up to get an idea of how lovely my student life at surrey was (is). Feel free to comment on the posts or send in your queries about student life to india@surrey.ac.uk

I absolutely loved doing archery with the archery club at the university. I also took part in a dance competition with Bollywood society. They both were a good break from my studies. Also managed to travel around a bit. Did a few solo adventures to Bath, Salisbury, Scotland, London a multiple number of times and even a quick visit to Paris and Rome.

But the highlight of my year was definitely the course. We had a small proactive and inspiring cohort across different disciplines like art, architecture, planning and psychology. We looked at many people-environment concepts, theories, studies, as well as fields of study. I got to work on the topic of my interest for the dissertation. Also travelled to Rome (again) for a conference where I presented my study and got insightful feedback. Here’s what a typical week is more or less like for masters student.

My dissertation was then turned into a PhD research proposal when I decided to research more and get another degree (and avoid working for another 3 years at least) 😀 I am partly funded by the Doctoral college at the university. As happy I am about just being back at the university, I’m the happiest to be a part of the inspiring, innovative, and supportive research community of the university. I feel that the next three years here would be different but also fun and memorable just as my masters.

I’ll be writing regularly so watch this space for more details on doing a research degree at surrey, how to apply, writing up funding applications, life as a researcher and so on.

TC x