I am a 4th Year Media student and I became a PALS leader in my last Semester at University.
My experience of being a PALS leader has been extremely valuable to me. I have been able to engage with students’ ideas for their dissertation project, and help make suggestions and create activities in order to help them shape these ideas.
My experience as a PALS leader has allowed me to build new relationships with students and lecturers that have been involved with the module. I feel that I have learned how to create activities, and importantly how to adapt to the needs of particular students on a particular day, regardless of what was initially planned. I think that this will be very helpful for me in the future, as I am aiming to go into academia and ultimately have a career in teaching at university level.
I have also worked closely with another leader, strengthening our relationship as friends and giving it an extra dimension in which we work together and adapt to each other’s ideas. I feel that in particular I have gained confidence that I didn’t previously have, and that my experience in working with PALS has helped me to solidify my future career plans in teaching.
I have also learned about different disciplines as the module I was leading on was interdisciplinary. This has led me to understand various areas of humanities, which will be useful to me in my postgraduate course as this is highly interdisciplinary as well. I feel that listening to other peoples’ ideas has really helped me to broaden my mind with regard to my own field, and provided me with an understanding of different avenues and careers that can come from my area of study.
