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- Hi my name is Shawnee, I'm a third year PhD student in
ethnography, I'm originally from Wisconsin, and I came to
University of Southampton to ultimately become a professor
in social anthropology.
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- So right now, we're on Highfield Campus, it's one of two
campuses in the University of Southampton, we just came from
The Bridge, that's one of the many campus cafeterias,
restaurants, there's bars right behind you, there's bars
all the way around, and I typically like to come here to do
most of my work, I'm quite a social creature so I like that
white noise of people having fun and talking while I work,
and focus on reading and writing.
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- So, I came to the University of Southampton because it's
maximum three year study,
and essentially my research is a
continuation of my Master's Degree, so going into the field,
or this field in particular, I knew I could finish in about
three years, and the University of Southampton is completely
structured around completing your thesis.
What I did is I did all of those courses within
the first year, I did that because I am a
social anthropologist, so I study culture and people,
and that required me to go on at least one year's worth of
fieldwork, so that's what I did the first year
on the University of Southampton campuses,
and then once that was done,
I did six months in Lille, France, hanging out with
French internationals, as well as people from Brazil
and Germany, and just generally a young adult friend group.
And from there, I did another six months in Edinburgh,
doing about the same thing.
So it was very nice that I got all of the credits out of
the way the first year.
I've published recently,
my first article in the GradNet program at the
University of Southampton, which is a cohorts of all the
PGR students, and they put on a conference, and then they
have a journal, and it's called the Emergence Journal,
and so it's basically geared into making you a better
researcher, and overall a better academic writer.
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- My favorite thing about the university is just how
diverse it is, I mean most universities nowadays are
quite diverse; Southampton has more than 135 countries
represented here.
It's very easy to get involved in cultural activities,
from your own cultures and from your own ethnic
backgrounds as well as participating in other peoples';
there's the Brazil Society, and they host a fiesta every
year, and it's a really big party, everyone gets involved,
there's all kinds of clubs and sports, and pretty much
any genre you want to participate in, you can, and
another good thing about the University, it's very
student-run as well, so the Southampton Student Union,
or the SUSU, if you have an idea for a society or a club,
and you want to start one, well it's actually quite easy
to do that and get faculty support
and administration support.
And it's probably the biggest reason for me coming here,
is how supportive they are,
and primarily my supervisors
have been amazing,
and if I have any suggestion for people
who are looking to do a post-grad degree, like a master's
or a PhD like me, it is
don't make the university location your primary goal,
I chose Southampton first because of my
supervisor and then because of location.
It's an hour away from London, we have an international
airport here as well, so it's easy to get to Scotland or
Ireland or anywhere in Europe.
I'm really glad that I came here.
I was part of the GradNet conference, and for this the theme
was innovation versus tradition.
And so, because my research deals with youth culture and
recreational drugs, which includes alcohol, I decided to
present on craft beer and how popular it is and how global
it is for being such a local, authentic product.
Using the term 'millenial', that's what we are, ages
between early 20's and mid-35,
we are the generational
cohort that's pretty much responsible for the reasons you're
seeing craft beer popping up all over the world,
so even though it was Generation X that started craft
brewing, within a US context,
because it was so new in flavor, and
bold in flavor,
with roots in locality and regional
authenticity, and essentially community support,
I'm a big defender and a big believer that today's youth
culture is the reason why there's craft beer in Mexico,
there's craft beer in the UK, which already had a
very strong beer tradition, but now we're seeing
more colorful labels, and more exciting flavors.
So, that's what I do.
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about top universities, please click that link right there.
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