Joining University of Cambridge has been a lifelong dream of mine. There was just something about this place that always made me want to come back ever since my first-time visiting Cambridge as a tourist. So, naturally I’m very grateful to Professor Lionel Paolella at Judge Business School for inviting me to come to Cambridge from October until December 2024.
Beyond the sheer beauty of Cambridge as a city, what impressed me the most is the vibrant research culture. PhD students and faculty work together very closely (beyond collaborations between PhD students and their respective supervisors) creating a system of mutual learning from each other. This spirit of collegiality between PhD students and faculty was extended to me as well, despite the fact that I was just a visiting student. I was equally shocked and delighted when scholars who’s work I had admired ever since the beginning of my PhD went out of their way to make time to meet me 1-on-1. The extent to which such high-quality feedback has helped me with further developing my PhD is quite difficult to put into words. Let’s just say that I’m immensely thankful to all the academics there who made time in their busy schedule to meet with me.
But it’s not just the collaboration between PhDs and faculty that inspired me during my time there, it’s also the PhD community just by itself. Not only is the Judge full of incredibly bright, dedicated, and hard-working future scholars, but they are also incredibly supportive of each other, and really invest a lot into maintaining a strong PhD community. That ranges from supporting each other when presenting our research, to planning a whole variety of socials together (movie nights, pizza nights, visiting a museum together). There’s so much that we as PhD students can learn from each other, and the Judge community really invests a lot of time and resources into facilitating that.
Overall, I’m immensely grateful for my time at the Judge, for all the time I got to spend with the amazing people I had the privilege of getting to know during my stay there, for my host Lionel for inviting me, and to all the people who made the time to offer feedback on my work. However, none of this would’ve been possible without the funding from UEBS, so my special thanks to them. And, to all the PhD students at UEBS who are thinking about a research visit, my advice would always be: Do it! It’s so worth it!