Galina Shulgina's internship at the Korea Advanced Institute of Science and Technology (KAIST) in South Korea
Galina Shulgina, research intern at the International Laboratory for Assessment of Practices and Innovations in Education, participated in an internship at the Korea Advanced Institute of Science and Technology (KAIST) in July 2024 as part of the Academic PhD program.
The internship at KAIST was a natural extension of a collaborative research project as part of Galina's PhD thesis investigating peer editing as a form of collaborative learning, which Galina realized under the guidance of her supervisor Jamie Costley.
“An indelible impression was made by the university campus, which is comparable in size to an entire neighborhood, where modern buildings and small park areas with ancient monuments and statues are organically adjacent. ”
The buildings themselves house numerous laboratories and classrooms with state-of-the-art equipment, as well as exhibitions and cultural events. One of the official symbols of the university is the goose, and several birds live and walk freely on campus.
In addition to the overall experience of getting to know the university and immersing themselves in a new culture, the internship also provided a number of applied outcomes.
“Going to KAIST allowed me to personally meet Mick Fangay, a visiting professor in the School of Digital Humanities and Computational Sciences and a friend of ours. Also at the same time at KAIST were my supervisor Jamie Costley and another of his graduate students (and now PhD in Education), Han Zhang. Thanks to this happy coincidence, we were able to discuss strategies for joint research projects”
Another important outcome of the internship was the opportunity to discuss the main points of my thesis with my colleagues, which helped me a lot later on when finalizing the text and going through the pre-defence.
“As I am finishing my PhD studies at the end of 2024, another focus of the trip was to learn from colleagues' experiences in applying for open positions at foreign universities and going through interviews. I hope that the advice I received will help me when I am selected for a post-doc position”
The main product from the internship was a joint article that is currently under review in a highly ranked international journal.