17/05/2024
We're always happy to help! Here's one of our students sharing what he thinks of our support...
I came to Birmingham from Japan in September 2023. In the early days of my life here, especially from September to October, I felt so lonely because I am a PhD student, and I had no classes to take. I knew that people studying abroad would sometimes experience loneliness and I was thinking I could stand it. However, it was much more of a lonely time than I had expected. Also, I am sure that the beginning is important for making new friends, but most of the social events on campus had already finished when I realised it. Furthermore, most people in my accommodation were also first-year graduate students and it was difficult for us to get some “local” information at that time. One day, I saw a sticker of the Student Mentor Scheme on the fridge in my flat. I was surprised to know that the Student Mentors deal with a wide range of issues, and that encouraged me to contact the office by email to get more information about some events held on campus and about societies that I can join to meet more people. For non-native speakers of English like me, email might be the easiest way to communicate because we can take time to think about grammar and expressions to correctly convey our issues. That was the reason I started to contact the Student Mentor Office by email, and how I met Lucy. I received an email from her in October for the first time, which contained a lot of information about events which were going to take place on campus. Since then, she kindly sent me emails once or twice a month to let me know about the next events, and also to ask me whether I was doing fine or not. While I am doing my research, I do not have many chances to meet people on a daily basis except for my supervisor, because my research can be done only with my laptop and some documents. That’s why the continuous exchange of emails with Lucy helped me a lot to feel less lonely. Now I can say that I have been recovering from loneliness, and my sincere gratitude goes to Lucy, and to the roles of the Student Mentor Scheme!
