A successful ending to the second year

This year was much more difficult than the first one, mainly because of the fact that I took part in many projects outside of my regular curriculum. One of the most important events of the year was my placement at the University of Oxford. I was working there for 3 months as a research assistant by my brother´s side. My main task was to recruit participants and then go through the entire study with them. The research was about the connection between pain and learning and how much pain influenced the ability to learn. During the placement I had the chance to really experience the scientific research in psychology. I would evaluate this experience as positive, but I think that in terms of my future career plans, it's not something that I want to get into in the long term. After saying this to some people they asked me if I would have rather picked something else. To that I would absolutely say not. Because of experiencing this, I now know what I don't want to particularly do and I think that is really important.

Another important project was the “MeeTwo” application that I mentioned in my last post. Not only am I a part of the “super peer”, who take care of the correct functioning of the application, but I also found my dissertation partner for third year through it. My dissertation partner personally knows the creators of the application and they have allowed us to use the data from it. This means that we have an amazing source of information for our study and it is going to be much easier for us in the sense of collecting data. We have decided to write our dissertation on the effect of peer support on depression and anxiety disorders. In today's research, its a topic that definitely needs more studies. I think this collaboration will open doors for both of us. We have already started working on our dissertation now so that we will not run out of time at the end of the school year.

Concerning the cultural shock that I was going through last year, I have to say that that is all gone. I have gotten used to living in the UK and I like it more every day. I had to find a new job, because the career of a bartender was not working with my time schedule. My friends and I have also moved to a new house, which is cosier and generally nicer to live in. We will all be in third year and we will need more quiet time to concentrate on the important things.

Last but not least I want to thank The KELLNER FAMILY FOUNDATION for giving me this great opportunity and hopefully will continue to support me in my further career development. I would also like to thank my family and friends for sticking with me, even when things times were hard.