Dr Bridget N'gandu

I think one of the things that attracts me to higher education is being able to contribute to the students journey. I wanted to make a difference in facilitating that journey when students are deciding on their career, in my case it is social work. For potential students coming to the social work program it is an exciting period, because your journey to become a Social Worker brings up a lot of things and I want to be a part of that. Contributing to somebody’s career was one of the main reasons for coming into academia.

I think the biggest value of higher education is it being transformational. I think for anybody who has an opportunity to study for a degree your thinking is never the same, your outlook of world issues is never the same, and I think in that way you are transformed. Your mind is challenged in a different way and I think that is the benefits of higher education. I come from a background where both my parents were teachers, and the encouragement I got from them and for my brothers and sisters was always to aim high. I was very encouraged to go as high as I could with my learning, and that was always fascinating. I wanted to do something at a higher level so going on to do a Masters and a PhD in some ways felt more of a natural progression for me, it wasn’t so much of a struggle as I grew up in that environment.

Funnily enough I’ve never actually studied in the UK, my first degree was in social work at the University of Botswana and after 2 or 3 years of working I decided to pursue a masters and a PhD in Perth in Australia. As mentioned earlier I worked in Ruskin College in Oxford and it was a very small college, so coming to the University of Kent everything is so much bigger, such as the number of students. I think for me it was the opportunity to get into a university that is worldly renowned for its research which a key motivation for me.

Well the motivation of doing research was one. I was also attracted to Kent because of its culture, especially for social work around radical social work, transformative social work practice. A lot of my colleagues now were people I had read about in terms of their research and their publishing, so I think that culture was pulling me towards this university. I remember speaking to colleagues in Oxford who weren’t too happy about me leaving, but they said “if you are going to leave this college and go to Kent that’s fantastic, because that is one of the good universities in terms of research”.

I would say my parents, both of my parents were teachers. For me to be where I am was because of them. I’ve also had the opportunity to meet people along the way who I’ve developed very good relationships with, some of them have been my lecturers who were very helpful in giving me advice in terms of what I wanted to do and where I wanted to go, and also close friends. If you have a few friends that understand and know who you are, they’ll support you to get there.

I think for me it is the opportunities that you get in terms of who you’re working with, I can talk to my colleagues in the social work department. I think over the last 18 months I’ve been able to meet colleagues in different departments and you learn a lot beyond your day job. For example collaborating with someone in the migrations department or the centre for child protection gives you a different perspective on the same issues. That helps me grow in a different way.

Part of it is the interaction, students have got so much knowledge to give and I value the classroom interactions. I enjoy lectures and seminars because you have the opportunity to actually discuss and explore issues, and it’s not a one way conversation, students talk about their life experiences. I think that is the most valuable thing about being an academic, the interaction with students.

Generating knowledge, and by that I don’t mean just new knowledge that hasn’t been done, but the opportunity to build onto something that’s already out there. Again, there aren’t many jobs in the world that give you the opportunity to say, “do a small-scale research task, talk to people”. For me research is about generating and contributing to the knowledge that already exists, and actually sharing that knowledge as there is no point in me doing something and not sharing it with the outside world and students. Also being able to critique it and discuss it.

It has to be this year’s world social work day, which I have to choose as it was a joint effort between academic staff and students. In the social work team we have Student’s Action for Diversity (STAND), a student led social work group, and I’m one of the co-facilitators for that group. This year we invited Professor Lena Dominelli from the University of Stirling, (Scotland) and she is one of the world-renowned social work academics on anti-oppressive practice. Having her come to Medway and talk to students and inviting practitioners from Medway Council and Kent County Council was really great and most memorable.

I think for me it was coming from a smaller college. One of the challenges of course is adapting to working in a bigger institution which has so many different structures or layers, and the challenge can be navigating the systems within, knowing how to access support, such as when advising students. When I initially joined I asked where students go for support as you always ask those type of questions. So I think institution wise for me it was vastly different to what I was used to and that is a challenge. Luckily I have a very supportive team, they’ve helped me overcome some of these difficult points.

I was awarded a Faculty of Social Sciences research award in May 2018 of £3,000. It is a hugely competitive area to get funding for small projects so I would say that was the greatest achievement.

First to complete the project I’m working on. I’m doing a research project on social work practitioner experiences of volunteering with Social Workers without Borders, helping asylum seekers and refugees come into the UK. I’m a volunteer myself and one of the things that interests me is finding out what motivates people to volunteer in their own time, but also how that transforms their practice when they are working in the public sector. My aim is to complete that by February 2020. Beyond that I would like to enhance my research, and perhaps apply for larger funding and to increase the scale of the project I’ve already started on. Also to contribute to publishing, the University is world renowned for research and I see that as an area I could contribute to.

The university is going through a challenging time - the biggest challenges being how we look after the staff, and most importantly our students. I think there are good examples already, so it’s how we enhance that and create more opportunities, especially for students at a time where you have a lot of queries about the value of a degree and if you will be able to get a job once you graduate. So I think the challenge for the university going forward is to provide internationally recognised qualifications that give opportunities for graduates to work in any part of the world.

The biggest motivation is when you see students from first year go into their final year and graduate. The icing on the cake is when students come back and say “Hi Bridget, I’m doing 'abcd' and I’m now a practitioner, and thank you for helping me on this journey”. I think that has to be the best motivator.

I think the first tip is work hard, that’s perhaps a given, but I would also say that while university can be fun it can be challenging and seem difficult at times too. So I would say find someone you can talk to, like a member of staff, and don’t be afraid to ask for help if you are struggling, because if you don’t then it could be too late to turn things around - if you can do that I think you will succeed. And finding a mentor, whether they are a member of staff or student, find that person who motivates you and get involved with societies. I found the benefits of being in a society because I felt like I belonged there, and belonged to the university. The last tip I would say is to keep an open mind. You meet so many people with different thoughts and ideas so by keeping an open mind you will find you are learning, and that’s where the transformation happens.