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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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- If you liked the video,
and you wanna learn more
about top universities, please
click that link right there.
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