Campus Live Interns’ Experience
Kseniia Lazareva, Jessica Todd and Austra Aprane are working as interns on the Campus Live project. They were appointed through the SES Internship scheme and work around 10 hours a week alongside their studies. In this blog post, they talk about what the project is, their contribution to it, and how it’s been giving them valuable skills that they can use in their future careers.
Kseniia: We are extremely happy to contribute to making our campus the cosiest and the most welcoming place in Leeds. Whatever your interests are -dance workshops, poetry or music — we will organise something interesting for everyone!
Austra: I decided to join the Campus Live team because I wanted to help organise various fun and exciting events where students could meet, have a great time, try something new and feel welcomed. It can be very scary to move away from home or return to campus after the pandemic especially in the middle of political and economic crises. I hope these events will allow students to show their talents, meet new friends and feel like they belong here, at the University of Leeds.
Jess: Since the beginning of October, there has been a wealth of engaging and diverse pop-up events at different sites all over the university. Campus has been brought to life by a variety of musical performances, such as a violin duo, solo vocalists and a range of bands such as CautHaus who captivated a great audience at their debut performance. Many artists were engaged: Slow Space Creative who held a brilliant day of creativity in the marquee and Simon Armitage, the Poet Laureate, along with other students and staff did readings at the wonderful Poetry in Abundance event. The events have brought the wider talent and culture of Leeds to campus, with Aryeflow bringing fire breathing to Henry Price and Open Source Arts offering The Refectory a taste of the circus. It’s been a vibrant time and we’re all very excited for what’s still to come!
Kseniia: Being an intern means learning new skills daily — that’s the best thing about Campus Live for us. Setting up equipment, working in a team, learning new things about organisational processes have been very exciting so far. Solving problems when they appear is a valuable part of building stress resistance in the workplace. The project is a safe and supportive place for doing that. We have really enjoyed working with artists from different genres and fields — communicating with them in the backstage is a big highlight and inspiration! So is improving a celebrating the sense of community at the University. Another huge highlight is planning and conducting an Instagram take over on the University of Leeds account. We were given direct access to post our stories and became social media stars for the day!
Jess: This is the first edition of the Campus Live Project so we have unsurprisingly had to face some challenges. — Winter weather has been an issue with torrential rain forcing us to move some acts inside, meaning they have lost their intended busking-feel. However, it has made us utilise campus in new ways such as turning The Refectory into a pop-up stage.
Balancing the internship with my day-to-day academic life has been challenging as I have had to ensure I am still meeting deadlines and completing all my university readings. However, learning to prioritise my workload and work within specific time frames are invaluable skillsand will help me when looking for future jobs
Austra: If you are reading this post and hearing about Campus Live for the first time, don’t worry! There will be plenty of interesting and unique events happening every week until the end of this term. I hope many students will get to showcase their talents and passions, try something new or just have a good time . It really is amazing to see how diverse our university is and how talented our students and staff members are!
You can check out our programme here.
