Shannon Horgan talks about her time presenting and attending a key psychology conference last year.
Published Friday, 1st February, 2019 in Student successes
PhD researcher Shannon Horan attended and presented at the prestigious European Academy of Occupational Health Psychology Conference in Lisbon at the end of last year. Here’s what she had to say about her unique experience there:
"I would like to start off by saying how grateful I am for receiving the City Graduate School conference travel bursary, funded by the University of London. Without this travel bursary, I would not have been able to attend the European Academy of Occupational Health Psychology Conference, and I would have missed out on such a fantastic opportunity. I would like to thank the Dean of the Graduate School and the other academics that reviewed the applications and awarded me the bursary, as well as the University of London for funding these travel bursaries for students. I had such a lovely time at the conference and I am truly grateful for the experience.
I was fortunate enough to present the first study of my PhD at the 13th European Academy of Occupational Health Psychology (EAOHP) Conference in Lisbon, Portugal. The topic of the conference was ‘Adapting to rapid changes in today’s workplace’ and had speakers and presenters from all over the world. There were three keynotes who are very well-known in the field, and they each gave such insightful and inspiring presentations. Additionally, I was able to attend symposiums from academics that I cite (a lot!) in my thesis, and hear about the latest research they are working on. I was also able to network and talk to many different researchers and get a glimpse into where the work in my field is going.
I gave an oral presentation entitled ‘Perfectionists on Vacation: A Respite Study Examining Relationships Between Two Dimensions of Perfectionism and School Teachers’ Wellbeing.’ This was the first time that I had presented at a conference, so I was very intimidated at first, but once I started my presentation, it went very well. I had some questions at the end, and afterwards a few people came up to talk to me about my presentation. It was so valuable to hear from other people about my own research.
As a whole, I found that the experience of going to EAOHP 2018 to be very inspiring. There really aren’t a lot of opportunities to be surrounded by others who research in your area and are passionate about the same things you are. Being able to hear from both seasoned academics and early career researchers really made be proud to be in the field that I am, and motivated me to continue to improve my own research. Doing a PhD can be isolating at times, but being surrounded by likeminded individuals for three days made me feel very connected to the community of researchers, that I had not felt before. I am already looking forward to EAOHP 2020!"