Kia ora koutou katoa,

I hope that the last month has been good to you as we make it to the second half of the second semester! (Oh how the time flies!). It has been a busy month with progress being made on both the PG Starter Pack and Communication Network front.

A poster version of the Starter Pack has been made, so if this is something that you would like to get your hands on, feel free to flick me a message. The Communication Network bus has also started moving and is being piloted with the PG Reps in the College of Engineering. Exciting times ahead!

As many of you are aware, the Thesis in 3 finals are happening this month on the 8th of September. Due to the level 2 restrictions this will be an online event. Keep an eye on the Learn page and your emails for more in on this!

In other news, UC is working on creating a Career Development Framework. This framework would aim to bring together the wide variety of career development opportunities offered to students at UC in a salient and coherent way. If you have any ideas about the type of things that would be useful to include in this, please get in contact. Another area UC have been working on is the redevelopment of the doctoral recruitment section of the UC website. This will hopefully make it easier for prospective students to find a project they are interested in.

Applications for the UC Aho Hīnātore | Accelerator Scholarships are now open, with a closing date of Monday 14th September. The kupu, Aho Hīnātore, refers to a luminescent light, which is a fitting name for this scholarship, which aims to transition UC’s best and brightest current, and recently completed, students to PhD studies at UC.

The Academic Skill Centre have a number of workshops for Thesis Writers. The sessions will be held on Thursdays 10-24 September 2020 between 1.00pm and 1.50pm. Topics include literature reviews, proposals (qualitative research) and note-taking. More info can be found here.

As always, if you have any ideas on how the UCSA can improve the postgrad experience, please get in contact. The UCSA would love to hear your ideas on areas that we can improve on. Feel free to get in contact with the UCSA PG Rep via email: postgraduate@ucsa.org.nz or Facebook.

As a final note, if you have spare moment, we would love you to fill out this nationwide survey to hear about your experience learning online during COVID-19. You can find the survey here.

Ngā mihi,
George Stilwell
Postgraduate Representative
2020 UCSA Executive

Campus at Level 2

By now you might have heard that NZ’s COVID-19 alert levels will remain the same until at least mid-September. That means that campus will be operating under Level 2. You can keep up to date with UC’s latest news through student email, and by checking Insider’s Guide blog.