Andre

As we draw to the end of the academic year, the time has come to say goodbye to this blogging position. This post will be my last, and with that in mind I will use it to reflect on my time over the past three years as a SAGE Scholar.

I first came across this opportunity in one of my first year lectures; the library and SAGE were looking for first years to take part in their three year blogging bursary and I thought, “hmm sounds interesting”. What really attracted me to this position was that I had had previous blogging experience from when I went travelling, and I thought I would be a good way to improve my writing and develop my voice.

Having spent three years in this position, I think what I will take the most from this experience is the ability to reflect on how I go about completing tasks, work and so on, and also how to engage with audiences in different formats, whether it be via blogs, vlogs, photos or even presentations.

A skill that I have definitely mastered over the course of the programme is being able to conduct focus groups and extract quality information from people – I have the yearly survey and focus groups to thank for that. I think that posting blogs each week has also really contributed to helping me find my writing style, allowing me to convey my thoughts and reflections in a way that’s also informative and entertaining.

I’d say what I ultimately have enjoyed the most is being able to share with people the struggles and triumphs of being a student, and having people who can relate, understand the struggle, and can learn from what worked and didn’t work so well for me.

With that in mind my favourite blog topic was the “Top 5 essay tips” post I did, people really seemed to find it useful when planning and preparing for an essay, and people are continually reading and making comments on it. I also really enjoyed making the vlog on presentation tips; I love presenting so making the vlog also felt like an extension of that. I think overall this scholarship was a growing experience, doing a blog post each week really keeps you on your feet, and also opens you up to parts of uni like resources and events that you’d otherwise miss.

As a final goodbye I’d like to thank Claire, Ant and Lucia for their support over the years, and Ollie, Aly and Jade (no longer here) for being part of the team over the three years.

Ollie

I’ve really enjoyed studying for my degree at Sussex. In first and second year I had an exhaustive overview of psychology; in third year I have had the chance to take a deeper dive into more niche subjects, including my dissertation. I’m nearing the end of my assignments/exams and I have my fingers crossed.

As for the the SAGE program – it has been a great experience. I found it interesting exploring the topics covered. It has also improved my ability to write and publish content, such as these blog posts and the accompanying social media posts. It has also been fun, and I’ve enjoyed the regular meetings and collaborations with my fellow SAGE students and our supervisor, Claire. I’d like to thank Claire for all her help in these posts; we couldn’t have done it without her.