{"id":1612,"date":"2013-10-26T17:00:03","date_gmt":"2013-10-26T17:00:03","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/occamstypewriter.org\/erikacule\/?p=1612"},"modified":"2025-01-30T07:44:41","modified_gmt":"2025-01-30T07:44:41","slug":"paying-it-forward","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/occamstypewriter.org\/erikacule\/2013\/10\/26\/paying-it-forward\/","title":{"rendered":"Paying it forward"},"content":{"rendered":"
\"Requirements

I submitted a physical, bound final copy of my thesis.<\/p><\/div>\n

Once the corrections to my thesis had been approved by my examiners, I ordered copies bound in regulation purple and submitted one to Imperial College Library<\/a>. As of March this year, a purple bound copy is no longer required – students submit their final copy electronically and their thesis is made available in Spiral<\/a> instead. I submitted<\/a> my thesis for examination in January, so fell under the “old” rules.<\/p>\n

\"Bound

Obligatory photo of the final product.<\/p><\/div>\n

In July, I received an email awarding me my degree. I was told my degree certificate would be in the post “within three months”. So I was excited when a letter arrived from Imperial College London, addressed to Dr Erika Cule. However, the letter contained not my degree certificate but a mailshot promoting Imperial Alumni Office’s 2013 fundraising campaign.<\/p>\n

<\/a><\/p>\n

The alumni office emailed me to apologise for this mishap, an apology I accepted. It was clear to me that it was hardly their fault! Moreover, the 2013 campaign will raise money for a Very Worthy Cause which I will be happy to support: the campaign will raise funds for the Rector’s Scholarship Fund<\/a>, which gives undergraduate<\/a> and postgraduate<\/a> scholarships. I feel I curious affinity for my alma mater<\/em> and would be proud to support the campaign. Imperial certainly gave me a great deal, even if it hasn’t given me my PhD certificate yet, and when I get the phone call<\/a> I feel inclined to donate, so that other students might have the chances I had. <\/p>\n

I had the opportunity to pay it forward in a more immediate and practical sense last week when I went back to Imperial’s South Kensington campus to attend a “Careers speed dating” evening. This event was organised by the Department of Life Sciences<\/a> for current Biology and Biochemistry undergraduates. I felt nervous, being such a newly-minted graduate myself, but when I turned up on the day I was the oldest alumnus of the undergraduate degree who had volunteered – the other alumni who volunteered had graduated from the BSc between 2009 and 2012. <\/p>\n

So many degrees, they wouldn’t all fit on the nametag.<\/p><\/div>\n

Despite the economic downturn in the intervening years, we alumni covered a range of careers between us, from current PhD students to a teacher and a management consultant. As the name suggests, the format of the evening was modelled on speed dating (I am told, having never been speed dating). Each alumnus talked to a small group of current undergraduates, and every seven minutes a bell sounded indicating that the group should move on to the next alumnus.<\/p>\n

It was exhausting! I don’t think I have ever talked about myself at such length. By the third or fourth group of student questioners, I found myself unable to remember whether I was repeating myself or talking to a new group of students, as naturally the students had similar questions for me. I directed a few of them to this blog to read about my PhD experience, so if you are reading, hi! I hope I was positive and encouraging even when I was recounting the difficult bits of my career journey. <\/p>\n

At the end of the evening, alumni were given a thank-you gift. <\/p>\n

“Don’t be a mug. Go to Imperial.”<\/p><\/div>
\nI certainly wasn’t expecting to profit from the evening. <\/p>\n

It was a pleasure to spend time with interested students, and to find out how the course I started back in 2005 has changed over the past few years. Hopefully I either answer the students’ questions or, where I couldn’t, pointed them in the direction of someone who might be able to. Thanks to Anita Hall<\/a> for organising the event. As the evening drew to a close, I felt I had “paid it forward” in a practical way – something I would recommend and would do again. And I still feel I owe something to the alumni telephone campaign. This year, the value of an Imperial College mug, at least.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Once the corrections to my thesis had been approved by my examiners, I ordered copies bound in regulation purple and submitted one to Imperial College Library. As of March this year, a purple bound copy is no longer required – … Continue reading →<\/span><\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":12,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[190,7],"tags":[40],"class_list":["post-1612","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-blogging-beyond","category-life","tag-careers"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/occamstypewriter.org\/erikacule\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1612","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/occamstypewriter.org\/erikacule\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/occamstypewriter.org\/erikacule\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/occamstypewriter.org\/erikacule\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/12"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/occamstypewriter.org\/erikacule\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=1612"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/occamstypewriter.org\/erikacule\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1612\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":3120,"href":"https:\/\/occamstypewriter.org\/erikacule\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1612\/revisions\/3120"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/occamstypewriter.org\/erikacule\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=1612"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/occamstypewriter.org\/erikacule\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=1612"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/occamstypewriter.org\/erikacule\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=1612"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}