What is SiS?
Exams, Revision & Coursework are important.. But there is MUCH MORE to education at the university level.
SiSUEA is an Undergraduate-run society to explore extra-curricular academic activities (as a group or on your own), which have importance beyond university grading procedures.
Real Research, Journalism, Real-world challenges, Event organization. The resources to initiate these types of activities are already available to you as students.
Last year, our members took the initiative to start shaping their own education in exciting new ways (below).
The society aims to support any students who want to do the same, at all levels of participation.
Our room is C.Hall 0.05, open every Wednesday from 13.00 - 14.30. Any student is welcome to drop in during this session, find out more, ask questions and also join the society if they want to.
Contact m.brown4@uea.ac.uk to find out more. Facebook group link here
Our Work with...
A student writes... (Linked here)
An article written by a society member facilitated the creation of this feature by the Ecologist's online publication.
Students can now write about any environmental topics and reach the charity organization’s large membership audience.
Published Examples:
Global Extinction Within One Human Lifetime?
Research Helpdesk Model
Over the summer (possible in term time) we contact external organizations, asking for real challenges that they as an organization currently face.
Groups of students can then use their academic skills to help with these challenges. This helps the students really improve their research skills in the context of a real world challenge.
In the summer of 2013, 3 members helped a local charity organization (Nelson's Journey) to find information relevant to their current information-based challenges.
PhD/Undergraduate Research Interaction
The society invites PhD student speakers to give short and accessible talks about their current research.
Any Society members, from any discipline, can attend and ask questions during or after the informal talk.
If any discussion leads to the identification of related topics of interest to the PhD speaker, members are free to research these topics further and informally present the findings to the PhD speaker at a later date.
This means that undergraduates can participate in literature review-type practice which may assist with the PhD research, whilst allowing the student investigator to gain research experience simultaneously.
The
Student Initiative Society UEA
Real World Challenges - Real Research - Journalism - Event Organization - [Create New?]
I am a 2nd year student who enjoys official university studies...
BUT
I have experienced other academic-related activities which I honestly couldn’t have dreamed of before starting university.
Including:
- Interviewing world leading scientists on climate change.
- Chatting with a world-leading entrepreneur who now designs new types of sailing boats to clean up ocean oil spills.
- Traveling to other universities and meeting students who are already undertaking important research.
- Helping to research new antibiotic drugs through an international biology competition last summer.
These are all science related, but the principles for how these opportunities arose can be applied to all academic disciplines. I am very interested to see how students from various disciplines can bring their skill sets together with new technology to embark on totally new academic projects at the undergraduate level.
The key is to view university as a tool for opening up the world outside of it.
Thanks for any interest and support,
Michael Brown,
SiS President