Vice-Chancellor’s Scholars Lauren Compston, Kaitlin Salzke and Brett Burong were funded to visit UNE in May to participate in Linguistics Special Project Stage 1, organized by Dr Liz Ellis.

The full-day workshop was aimed at broadening students’ insights into the career and further study opportunities in Linguistics, and to showcase exciting possibilities for research. Coming from Perth, Wagga Wagga and Ballarat, the students had not visited UNE before and were keen to meet staff, view the campus and gain an insider perspective on how research works.

The Scholars joined in a session with other Vice-Chancellor’s Scholars in Arts and Humanities to hear guest speaker Prof. Angela Brew talk on ‘What is research?’ and heard about some unusual career trajectories from the linguists in ‘Planned and unplanned pathways in linguistics’. Sessions followed from Library staff on postgraduate search strategies, and from Dr Philip Thomas on how to write a convincing HDR proposal. The Linguistics Scholars benefitted from comparing notes with the Arts and Humanities Scholars over lunch, and ended the day with dinner with the linguists before returning to Mary White College for the night.

Stage 2 of the Linguistics Special Project will see the students attend the Applied Linguistics Association of Australia (ALAA) Conference in Adelaide in December, under the mentorship of Dr Liz Ellis. This will be an opportunity to network with eminent researchers and to broaden their understanding of linguistics research.