Jo Sage
Geography PhD
I am an urban geographer. My PhD research has focused on university students living in Brighton, more specifically the influential role they have played in transforming the physical, economic, social and cultural characteristics of particular enclaves of the city where increasingly dense clusters of students have settled in shared housing over the last decade. The processes of student in-migration to parts of Brighton are tied to the broader context of widening participation in Higher Education; a key part of New Labour's 1997 manifesto. This pledge saw a target set to increase the number of 18-24 year olds attending a university to 50% by the year 2010.
Consequently, a dramatic expansion of student populations has been witnessed in university towns and cities across the UK, with the number of full-time undergraduate students in the UK increasing from approximately 500 thousand, to more than 1.5 million in the decade between 1997 and 2007 (HESA, 2007). In Brighton this has resulted in rapid and significant changes to neighbourhoods such as Bevendean, Hartington Road, the Triangle on Lewes Road and Hanover, where residents have reported both positive changes and dis-benefits associated with increasing numbers of neighbouring student households.
Researching such a topical issue as it has unfolded in the national and local context has been both challenging and rewarding. Urban areas make for incredibly exciting research contexts given their complex social and cultural influences, their history as spaces of resistance and rebellion, and their sheer diversity of life. Focusing your individual efforts on one specific research niche for three years can become understandably solitary, and from time to time frustrating. This said, choosing to research a population as dynamic as university students, and doing so by talking, at ground level, to people living in urban areas about their views and experiences of everyday life has kept the research fresh and absorbing.
The School of Environment and Technology has an active postgraduate social scene, with geography in particular remaining one of the most sociable outside of the office. Where else can you expect to jet off to Athens for a week supervising first-year urban field studies within your first month of PhD research! The opportunities to gain this kind of teaching a supervisory experience as a geography postgraduate are plentiful. These have allowed me to build my CV in preparation for life post-PhD
I hope to pursue an academic career beyond my PhD, and feel I have been supported extremely well at Brighton in building the appropriate experience to do so. This has involved attending conferences in locations ranging from Las Vegas, USA to Edinburgh, Scotland; all of which have been valuable opportunities to build contacts and friendships with like-minded people from all over the globe.
In sum, my PhD experience has been exciting, satisfying and well worth the odd weekend in the library!
