Welcome to the FERSA community
FERSA stands for the Faculty of Education Research Student Association. We facilitate collaboration, support, and networking among research-oriented graduate students’ faculty. We strive to create academic and professional development, promote research excellence, and enhance the overall experience of research students.
Each year, we organize activities for graduate students, including parts of induction, our FERSA blog, formals, academic seminars, welfare events, and quite a bit more.
Our purpose
Engaging Events
We have an exciting lineup of events, workshops, and social gatherings planned for the year. These events are designed to enhance your academic experience and provide opportunities for you to connect with fellow students in our faculty. This year, our calendar will be 'live' so you can always be updated on what is happening in the faculty.
Support activities
We will facilitate a range of support activities to assist you in your academic journey, including academic sessions and engaging study groups. Our goal is to help you excel in your studies and make the most of your time in Cambridge.
Advocacy
FERSA advocates for your rights and interests, ensuring that your voice is heard at the university level. If you have any concerns or suggestions, please feel free to reach out to us.
Community building
Creating a strong and supportive community is essential for our personal and academic growth. We encourage you to participate in our events and activities to connect with people you might share similar interests with.
Get involved in the Faculty
Volunteer opportunities
Students interested in giving back to the community or gaining valuable experience should consider joining us. We understand that many are not able to commit to a one-year role by running for an elected position. This is why our officers will welcome volunteers to help them organise Equality, Diversity, and Diversity, social, welfare, and academic events for the community. To volunteer, you can commit as much as an hour of your time to facilitate an event. We usually reach out to you through the different cohort WA platforms to recruit volunteers. If you are not part of your cohort WA group, please reach out to us.
Elections
If you are available to commit to a longer term, we have elections twice in the academic year, once at the beginning of the Michaelmas term and once at the end of the Lent term. The nomination period usually lasts for about a week, and elections follow the week after. Self-nominations are definitely encouraged. Candidates will only need to prepare a paragraph on why they are running for a position. All postgraduate students in the faculty (MPhil, MEd, PhD, and EdD) will then be invited to vote for the candidates of their choice or to re-open nominations.
Opportunities and announcements
Our newsletter usually goes out at the beginning of each week. If you want to submit an announcement that may be of interest to our readers, our newsletter is distributed through the FERSA mailing list, which includes all research students in the faculty. To submit an entry, send an email to fersa@educ.ac.uk e-mail and copy the current FERSA Secretary. We decided to limit the word count of each announcement to less than 100 words. Each submission should include the event/announcement title, date/time, place, and a short blurb.
The reason for this is to ensure that our newsletters are shorter and are more likely to be read by students. We will allow short over the word count limit but can't accept anything more than 200 words per announcement item. If you need to submit a longer announcement or full email, we can approve forwarding your e-mail through our mailing list. Please send them to soc-fersa@lists.ac.uk. We will only approve announcements involving most research students in the faculty. Also, consider sending your post to the general faculty mailing list, which has more readers and is facilitated by the faculty. If you have any questions about this, please reach out to us.
Please take some time to explore our website, and don’t hesitate to say HI to us when we meet at the faculty. If you have any concerns or suggestions for FERSA, you can also reach us by submitting an inquiry.