I decided to apply for this placement as I am very interested in contributing to the consolidation and further development of the feminist work that the University has been doing. In addition, the placement offered an exciting opportunity for me, both to become familiar with all the work done in the field, as well as with the visions of staff and alumni regarding the impact of feminist pedagogy.
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The application process consisted of sending my CV and a covering letter, followed by an online interview.
During the placement I was involved in the creation of an Online Feminist Library to consolidate the feminist work that has been conducted over the last 20 years at Sheffield School of Architecture (SSoA) and contribute to its future development, making visible the work of students and staff to a wider community. As First 'SSoA Feminist Librarian' my role consisted of collecting, organising and disseminating existing outputs from students and staff regarding feminist topics and methodologies, as well as feminist initiatives and intangible value of feminist pedagogy.
The activities frequently developed through the process were the communication and coordination with multiple actors not only to gather the material to be included in the library, but also to resolve technical and specific questions that came up during the process. Moreover, the activities developed also included the organization of all the material received, as well as the preparation, coordination, development and record of interviews with staff and alumni in relation to the intangible value and long term impact of feminist pedagogy. In addition, I attended weekly coordination meetings with the group involved in the creation of this project.
One of the aspects I enjoyed most of the placement was the opportunity to become familiar with plenty of pieces of work produced at SSoA regarding the feminist topic that allowed me to learn new concepts and approaches in the matter. In addition, the possibility to work collaboratively and interview experienced academics, which actions set the bases and contributed to the feminist agenda at the School, was an incredible experience.
One challenging aspect was the amount of material gathered and the several conversations maintained with different people at the same time, which required the development of systematic processes of documenting and organizing the information in order to avoid confusion and be aware of the particular situation of each author and piece of work.
I strongly recommend students to apply for a placement during their time in University, as a way to gain practical experience and strength their skills in order to positively impact their future career.
Form completed: 03 Jul 2020