SHARE Summer Research Experience at Cambridge University: Testimony by 3rd year student Hilal Karaduman

Hello everyone! This is Hilal, a final year BSc Psychology with Education student. I would like to take this opportunity to briefly tell you about a research experience I was very glad to complete last summer.

SHARE (Social Science & Humanities Access to Research Experience) is a six-week, paid, summer research experience programme which aims to enhance diversity and inclusiveness within the social sciences at Cambridge, and in UK academia. The research projects they offer are from a various number of social science departments like History, Linguistics, Archelogy and Politics. I had the opportunity to work with a professor on her project about second language acquisition. My role included data coding, regular meetings with my supervisor and presentations.

Through the six-weeks we were provided with free accommodation at the Gonville& Caius college. I stayed with seven other interns who were all approaching their final year undergraduate studies. We all had a great curiosity for academia, hence why we all ended up in the program and became friends very quickly.

Our days were filled with research experience, research methods trainings and loads of activities. These were either planned by our mentors, or teaching staff from different colleges of the university. We got the opportunity to attend many networking events, accompanied by barbecue picnics, film nights and city tours. On top of getting to know so many academics from different fields, we also got to experience Cambridge very authentically.

So, if you are completing your second year and interested in further academic studies, this program might be the one for you. The deadline for this year’s applications is 27th February. I’ll leave the application link and some other information links below. For any further questions you might have, feel free to contact me on my email.

Hilal (first row on the right) with some of the participants and staff

Application & Details
https://www.cshss.cam.ac.uk/sha

Blogpost reflecting our experience
https://www.cai.cam.ac.uk/news/caius-hosts-share-interns

SHARE Admin email
share@admin.cam.ac.uk

My email
Hilal.karaduman.20@ucl.ac.uk