First year undergraduates reflect on life at Lucy.
The ‘Student Lived Experience Project’ is an innovative, participatory research project that involves twenty undergraduate students from a wide range of backgrounds in documenting and analysing their lived experiences during their first year at Lucy Cavendish College. The project forms part of the transition towards welcoming undergraduate students of all ages and all genders to the College. It explores how the College supports and might further support its students, in particular those who are from backgrounds that have been historically excluded from attending Cambridge University. The project asks the students themselves to document and make sense of the opportunities and challenges that they face at the College. In this way, it aims to find out which College-led initiatives have the greatest impact on student inclusion, and which improvements or changes might be beneficial in the future.
The programme was possible thanks to the University’s Development Programme Accelerator Fund and LucyGives 2020 donations.
Six months into the project, the twenty-student co-researchers have documented their experiences before arriving to Cambridge, during the College’s pre-term orientation ‘Bridging Week’, and throughout Michaelmas and Lent Term. They have submitted spoken voice notes, have written diary entries, produced videos and have taken part in individual and group interviews. The project’s research methods aim to be as accessible as possible, allowing students to take part in the project without disrupting their academic lives, and to explore what ways of communicating their experiences suit them best.
In collaboration with Lili Schwoerer, the PI on the project, the students have also shared and collectively analysed their submissions in several Research Team Meetings. These meetings provide a space to discuss experiences and form personal and intellectual connections. Student co-researchers report that reflecting on their experiences, and sharing them in this confidential space, is in itself transformative. The project is future orientated; student co-researchers have cited as a motivation the impact that the project can have on future generations of students.
Elijah, a Student Co-Researcher, for example notes that:
‘I’ve been really enjoying [the project]. It’s been at the front of my mind all term [...] Because I know that at the end of the day this is helping people in the future, so it’s really good.’
Similarly, Charlie says:
‘Having gone to meetings and discussed some things with my peers, I feel reassured that I am not the only one feeling the same things. I definitely feel a bit more as a part of this College during this project. The main motivating factor is still to improve experiences for students in the future. I would definitely want to keep doing this project for the next few years.’
In addition, student co-researchers are involved in a range of outward-facing activities. In April, a group has presented at the annual British Sociological Association conference – the largest Sociology conference in the UK. They will be participating in a range of further presentations to diverse audiences over the coming months. Meanwhile, the research is ongoing, and the research team looks forward to learning more about what the future holds for Lucy’s students.
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