Humanitarianism and conflict response: learn to make a real difference | with The University of Manchester

This week I'm joined by Dr Amanda McCorkindale to discuss available courses at the Humanitarian and Conflict Response Institute at The University of Manchester. We discuss the mental health repercussions of such heavy topics, how students learn from past crises, what jobs are available after graduation and more

Participants

In order of first appearance:

• Emily Slade - podcast producer and host, Prospects
• Dr Amanda McCorkindale - lecturer in humanitarian studies, The University of Manchester

Transcript

Emily Slade: Hello and welcome to Future You, the podcast brought to you by graduate careers experts Prospects. I'm your host, Emily Slade and in this episode, I'm joined by Dr Amanda McCorkindale to discuss available courses at the Humanitarian and Conflict Response Institute at The University of Manchester. We discuss the mental health repercussions of such heavy topics, how students learn from past crises, what jobs are available after graduation and more.

Dr Amanda McCorkindale: So, my name is Dr Amanda McCorkindale. I am a lecturer in humanitarian studies at The University of Manchester in the Humanitarian and Conflict Response Institute, and I'm here to talk to you about HCI.

Emily Slade: Perfect. And can you describe what that is, please?

Dr Amanda McCorkindale: Sure, so the Humanitarian and Conflict Response Institute is a higher education programme at The University of Manchester. We have undergraduate and postgraduate programmes. Our undergraduate programme is called the International Disaster Management and Humanitarian Response BSc. And our postgraduate programmes, we have quite a few of those. I'll go through them in a bit. But to tell you a bit about the Institute, we are a multidisciplinary research institute. So we're one of the few research institutes at The University of Manchester where we have both a research initiative, where we get to do cutting edge research, everyday is lectures. But we also have an education aspect to what we do. So within our institute, almost all of my colleagues will be researching something important to them. But they'll also be teaching about those topics almost every day in the classroom. And our topics generally range from humanitarian studies, which I'll share - I'll talk about in a moment as well. But we also look at medicine development studies, disaster response conflict, basically, any any type of disaster or conflict situation, you can think of both currently that's happening, but historically, that's happened as well. So we have been developed to kind of think about how do we learn about these topics? And think of a way to improve going forward.

Emily Slade: Did you want to lean more into what humanitarian studies is?

Dr Amanda McCorkindale: Yeah, so humanitarian studies is looking at how do we respond to disasters to crises around the world. So humanitarian, traditionally, this is a bit of the lecturer in me coming out, so apologies in advance. But when we think of the term humanitarian, generally we're thinking about people who work for the Red Cross, for example, or medicine, some frontier or people who are helping out in crises and disasters, they're the people that were the big red cross are trying to provide aid or help in these situations. So humanitarian studies, is is kind of what it says on the box. We're studying those examples. We're studying those aspects of what does it mean to be a humanitarian? And how can we go into this field go into this aspect into this discipline more effectively. So HDRI was, to an extent created, because this idea of humanitarians and those who are going in and responding to crises, they're always responding within the moment. There's a disaster or a conflict that that suddenly takes place, and everything happens at a very fast pace. You don't necessarily have time to stop and think about what's our history, or what experience have we had working in this area, over the last 10 years, 20 years, 50 years, 100 years, they don't have that time to be reflective, they have the moment to respond to that crises as quickly as possible, so that they can get the most urgent help to those people who are in need, to those who need it most. So it might be medical care, it might be shelter, it might be water, sanitation, hygiene, which is is widely under appreciated in the humanitarian sector, but very much needed. But all of these aspects of how do we get food and things to people as quickly as possible? But what we've realised, and what is clear across the sector is that this willingness to help and to do good, can oftentimes create a number of problems. And it is that willingness to help without the hindsight of how we may have failed in the past. That creation of the problem is what we're trying to look at and what we try to explore and what we teach our students. So since the early 1990s, there is this professionalisation within the humanitarian sector of these people, these do gooders who have been going into different areas around the world trying to help. And this idea of, of it is a profession. It's a rising profession of people who tried to help. And with that, our institute was created in, I think it was 2008. And it was founded by a number of academics and practitioners from different sectors, thinking about how can we more effectively be responding to these disasters and crises? So in 1998, I think, no in 2008, sorry. There was this coming together, as I said, of humanitarian practitioners and academics. So we have one of the past presidents of medicine, some friends here someone called Dr Roni Bauman. He was the president between 1982 and 99. Before I think so some of those like pivotal years in MSS history, he actually met one of our founding history economics professors in the MSF archives in France in Paris. And they were talking about, wouldn't it be great if there was more time and space to study, the past cases that NSF had been involved in, and the work that they were doing in the past? To understand how you could learn from those lessons? As a historian, myself as well, thinking about, you know, instead of repeating history and repeating those mistakes, how can we break some of those cycles? So, Roni, and Bertrand as well as other academics, such as professor Peter Gatchel, professor Tim Jacoby, and professor Tony Redmond, who's an emergency medical doctor created HCI, with that idea of having that time and space to explore those past examples of humanitarian responses and think about, what are some of those major trends that we could see across these different areas? But then think about how could we improve it? It's well and good to learn about the past, but how can we prepare our students to be agile and to be adaptive and think about how to push the humanitarian sector so it it does better in what it's trying to do? And it can ultimately help more people? So the lot that was the long answer, but the short answer, I think is for humanitarian cities is, how can we more? How can we better prepare our students to respond to crises and disasters that are happening around the world without them having to make those mistakes for themselves?

Emily Slade: So why is this important in today's society?

Dr Amanda McCorkindale: That's a great question. And I think, unfortunately, the world is not short of problems. If you look at the headlines from today, or from this week, you see conflict, you see extreme weather events, you see natural hazards, you see famine, you see all sorts happening around the world. And there will always be people in the world who want to respond and who want to help in these situations, they have this intrinsic need to help one another, within with his this idea of, you know, promoting humanity and human welfare, one of the core principles within the Red Cross, and within the humanitarian sectors as a whole. And so long as those crises and disasters and events are happening. We should be studying and we should be exploring, where things have gone well, and where things haven't gone well. And unfortunately, there are a lot of examples where things haven't gone well. And a lot of it might be because they don't have the time and space to think about it while it's happening. But I think there's also a case of just not really being as sympathetic or understanding to different historical contexts and different cultural contexts, that lead to misunderstandings and lead to wider issues. So it's important in today's society, to study this topic and these issues. So that way, we can hopefully while trying to help in a way that reinforces the in country infrastructures and the local populations and finding our space within that to help and it might not be going to the country, it might not be responding in the way that you think it is. Sometimes it's just raising awareness about an issue or perhaps it's recognising that your space or your place isn't there at that moment. But in today's society, that aspect of wanting to help and wanting to respond when you feel so powerless. I think when you read the newspaper, and you see everything that's going on, but you have this will and this ambition to try to help make the world a better place. I have a lot of very idealistic students who have the best of intentions, and it's fantastic to teach them every day. But I think it is that sense of being perilous in this, in this wide world. So learning about this and equipping yourself with the skills to think and analyse a situation from multiple perspectives of is this the right place? Should we be responding, or how could we more effectively help here? I think that will always be necessary within our society. And while it is very geared up within this sector, our students go on to so many different careers where they put these skills to use that even though it is very niche as a topic and quite a long degree title to say anything. We do have a lot of acronyms. So be warned. It is something that you can apply to almost any other job sector Our students do go on and apply to many different job sectors as well. But you know, that they're going in and they're being informed global citizens that they're kind of walking into this, being able to analyse this, the environment that's around them, and come to some solid conclusions based on all of these different disciplines that we kind of forced them to study and to learn more about.

Emily Slade: So yeah, I was gonna say. Who is it that comes to study? Who are your student base? And where do they end up going?

Dr Amanda McCorkindale: That's a great question. I would love to say that, you know, 'x is our typical student'. But the way that HDRI works, is we don't we do recruit from, you know, specific areas. And you can see that when I go through some of the students that we have, but really, I think one of the the core aspects of who our students are, they are those people that want to change the world. And they are the people that want to make a positive difference. And they come from every discipline you could possibly imagine. So we have a number of students coming from, who are passionate in terms of looking at history or geography, political science, international relations theory. So all of those kind of big hitters. We also have people coming from economics. So we're thinking about things like supply, trade and chains and logistics and that side. And we also have those coming from a history background, who just love learning about the stories of the past. So, some of our PhD students, for example, have written their dissertations on those on the stories of individual philanthropists over time and what that looks like in terms of the impact that they've made during their generation. And then we also have a number of practitioners on campus degrees. So like I said, we've got a lot of postgraduate degree programmes. We have two that are on campus. One is an MA, a Masters of Arts in Humanitarian Conflict Response, which is HCR for short. And we have an MSc, which is a Masters of Science in International Disaster Management. So those are more our MA and HCR is more focused on that historical aspect. So you have that, quote, one of the core modules is is a history module. So the history of humanitarianism, or looking at the role of young people in humanitarianism over time. Or it might be the ever uplifting module of humanitarianism and genocide, which is quite a heavy topic to think about on a weekly basis. But it is that historical aspect. So there's more conflict related, we have anthropology in there as well. So it has it has that arts feeling around it slightly more. So whereas the MSc in Disaster Management takes a focus looking instead at the disaster risk reduction, resiliency side of our department. So your core modules, kind of look at disaster management, we look at those logistics and supply chain aspects, you might have a simulation in some of our modules of, how do you respond to different disasters and what that may look like. And so but for both of these are students coming on to them, for the Masters programmes, at least take a more traditional route of doing an undergraduate degree, and then coming in and joining us for the Masters. And for the most part, it is to kind of gain that experience, and have that space to write a dissertation as well, where they can really demonstrate their expertise in a topic or subject area, because this puts them far above when they're applying for jobs, when they can kind of come in and say, you know, this was my Masters. And my specialist research was on conflict in South Sudan, during this time, and looking at how that impacted with natural resources and really does set them apart when they're, when they're looking at applying for jobs. And you can see it when when students go on to kind of talk about it and come back and talk to us about it, of how they said 'oh, it was great'. I could, you know, they asked me questions, some asked to read my dissertation and you feel like you're contributing something. Whereas our online degrees, we have an online Masters in Global Health, which has different pathways that you can choose from. And we also have a programme called Leap, which I can't remember the acronym for that one at the moment, but it's leadership excellence, something programme. But that one was created in partnership with medicine, some funds here. And the point of our online degrees is that they're part time so that they are designed for practitioners who are working in a variety of contexts, to be able to complete their Masters and progress within their leadership chain within their organisation. So in this respect, a lot of our online students are either medical doctors, a lot of them are medical doctors today. So they might be working within the NHS in the UK. So they could be, you know, an ICU or any sis register or consultant. So I have a very serious daytime job. And then they're doing their assignments and discussion boards for me at night time. And then we also have a number of students who are working for the Red Cross for medicines on frontier for - I've had people working for the Navy and the Air Force, who are medical doctors or nurses within those aspects as well. But also just people who are are in leadership positions in those organisations who are looking to get a different perspective in the situations and contexts in which they're working. So for our students, there they are, around the world, they're based everywhere. And their experiences, you'll get an email saying they couldn't submit their assignment one night, because the electricity went out where they were because, you know, there were they're in a refugee settlement, or they're working from a conflict, an active conflict zone. So in the Ukraine, we have doctors who are currently in Gaza as well. So thinking about that, in terms of, you know, the students that we have, from that side, we have this wealth of practitioner practical experiences, online with hundreds of students, all kinds of giving their input and their examples. And then our on campus students have this rich, theoretical, academic based discipline that they bring to the table. And in some of the online modules, you get this mixture of the two, because our on campus students can take the online ones, and sometimes our online students, if they're taking one of the blended programmes, they come and visit us on campus as well. So you then see this coming together together of our academic and our practitioners. And the conversations you get, and the the space to really think through some of the challenges that that are facing the humanitarian sector, that's where some of these magic moments in our, at least for me, as an educator kind of happen, because you can't replicate that you can't make that up. And so that's something that's incredibly special about our institute, is just this wealth of very passionate individuals who want to create this change and create this difference. But getting to learn from those who are facing some of the hardest situations we could possibly imagine right now.

Emily Slade: And just on that mental health is something being talked about more and more, and help is more widely available than ever at most academic institutions, and it's getting better every year. But this course in particular feels like it's almost a necessity for you provide sort of mental health help not only for those, studying them or academic aspects, but for those out and about in actual war zones.

Dr Amanda McCorkindale: The mental health aspect is so important. And it's something that ever, ever since I've been with the institute, so I initially, I did the MA here at HCI, in 2010 2011, and I was the second cohort of the Masters programme. But over the course of time, I've really seen a difference in terms of the mental health provision that we've provided. And I've been currently my role within HCI, we always kind of shuffle worlds around within the department, because we're quite small. I think there's about 40 of us altogether, who are teaching stuff. But currently, I'm the director of our postgraduate programmes, and I also do admissions recruitment. So whenever I'm kind of holding an open day, for our programmes, I include trigger warnings. Almost always, when I introduce the degree programme, because it is something that every single day that you come to university that you open up one of these modules that you even think about opening an article to read it, it will be about trauma, it is about the most harrowing examples of challenging situations that society has faced historically and currently. So how can we prepare our students to kind of go through this and to think about this? And we found over time that you know, having trigger warnings is incredibly important. As I mentioned, we kind of have it for the for the degrees as a whole of 'Be warned it is every, it is going to be a struggle'. But we also think about how we can have both formal and informal support in terms of mental health support. So some of our in formal support mechanisms are things like having peer mentors for first year students. So they get a buddy from somebody who's older, within our undergraduate programme that they can talk through some of the issues they may be having, or just have that support of talking through any challenges that they're facing the course or just settling into the university. So they don't feel quite like they're on the road when they start. And we found that's been really helpful in terms of creating that network, but also creating that community. Because our undergraduate programmes, we like to keep them small, we like to get to know our students. So I think we have about 30 to 40 students on our single honours programme. And then we have another 15 to 20, who do our joint language, they do the degree with a joint language aspect, and we really get to know them. And as a, generally, I'm one of the course conveners on one of our first year, first semester modules. That's all theory, it's pretty heavy stuff. And getting to our students in that very first semester, you get to see their journey throughout their undergraduate degree. And this year, I was lucky enough to also teach them in their in a third year module that I created. It's called ethical decision making under pressure. So I was looking at their ethical positionality. And I think, within our teaching, having those like trigger warnings within it helps prepare them to an extent. But it's also it's always going to be difficult when, like I said, for that first year module, one of the case studies we just discussed week in and week out, was the Rwandan genocide, like how can you ever appropriately prepare someone to read about genocide every week, or to learn that some of the institutions that you've always looked up to, or you've always thought were, you know, the good guys quote, unquote, some of the things that are, that they've done in the past, so you know, mistakes that the UN has made, or individuals within the UN have made. So thinking about that, it, it is important to kind of have regular check ins with your academic advisor, which is something we do regularly throughout each semester. And that academic advisor is somebody that that is an academic member of staff. But we have a number of kind of checking points each semester with our first year students. It's mandatory for first years and then as it progresses, it backs off, to allow them that time and space to talk about what may be bothering them. And for us to pick up on when we need to signpost them for further help. So it might be, you know, counseling services that are offered and free from The University of Manchester. Or it might be having a bit more of a formal conversation. In the past, we've also had, you know, coffee afternoons and things like that, where you just have that space to talk. And I think it's important to show students your vulnerability sometimes as a lecturer and show them that you can be emotional about everything that you're reading about, and it is hard to cope with. And as lecturers, it's something that we do struggle to cope with sometimes. I remember a moment that from this past year teaching my ethics course where I was talking about, you know, the effects of COVID as a mum and my family, and thinking about, you know, those choices you have to make when you're going through something and I was emotional thinking about it, and talking about it to my class. But I think because I showed some of that vulnerability at the time, it created the safe space where my students could also reflect on their own vulnerabilities. And it created a very authentic moment of discussing those challenges that we all kind of faced, and thinking about the choices that we're making and working through it. So I think that idea of creating a community and creating those safe spaces, which is something that we also have within our handbooks, but the actual implementation of what is a safe space. So you know, it's safe to ask those questions that might be a bit more challenging. But also think about it's the safe place to be vulnerable. And I've had one of my online students in the past, has we've we've done some workshops together. And the kind of feeeback from one of the sessions that we ran with a group of medical doctors who worked for the military was that we were creating the safe space to fail and safe space to make those decisions and think things through where you don't want to do that in a situation where people could could lose their lives potentially or could be injured based on the decision that you're making. So how seeing these spaces where it's kind of safe for them to fail and to work through that is incredibly important. So in terms of the mental health aspects of how do we then support our students, we recognise that every one of our students will have the cliche of everyone has mental health, you know, just like physical health. Everyone has this degree of mental health and where we currently sit with it of, you know, how am I feeling today? How am I doing? And then thinking about when can I ask for help? And who do I go to, to ask for help. And because we're a small department, then I think those opportunities to check in with our students and have them check in with us present themselves regularly. So we can support our students, when they're having those moments that are challenging, because they, we will all face it at some point where we're having a challenging day based on what we're reading about or studying about. And sometimes it's recognising that we're being slightly more forceful with our students, in telling them to stop reading a certain point of the day, because I've had students in the past tell me, you know, when they're reading about some of the topics we cover, there'll be reading just before they go to bed, and they were having nightmares. So we had to put curfew on when they could read and write your homework is to not do your reading after. And instead, you have to go watch some watch cartoons, rubbish TV, yeah, just watch something else, do something that makes you happy. But you're not allowed to read this topic at night. Like, yeah, so even just kind of thinking through and working through with them what type of schedule, because they also feel this responsibility to learn about it. So as much as I would say, like, for students who perhaps have faced some of the issues that we teach about, which are very sensitive topics, and they may identify with some of the things that are going on. And we always give the option of if you get upset, you can always give trigger warnings beforehand. But if you need to excuse yourself from a lecture or from a period within the teaching, it's kind of a no questions asked, just excuse yourself, and we'll check in with you afterwards to make sure everything's okay. But if it becomes too much, then please do, we won't be offended if you need to take go out for a breath of fresh air. But at the same time, it's if you, if you say that to students, they still have this sense of but I want to learn about it. So it's that balance of and I have this responsibility to learn about it. So trying to find that balance so that they can learn about it. And they can understand it so they can enact positive change, because they've learned about it, but also balancing it up. So it's not damaging their mental health. And it's not creating problems for them and their personal lives in order to cope. So we're trying to build those the best practice in terms of coping mechanisms throughout their degree, while knowing that humanitarians who are worked working in situ, still struggle with that now. And it's, it is a sense of, you know, if you're working in situ for six weeks, seeing some of the worst possible scenarios, it is going to be a struggle, but how can we help build that mental resiliency so that our students are more adept at being prepared for this or being able to respond to it in a way that has positive coping strategies as opposed to negative coping strategies?

Emily Slade: Hopefully something a bit lighter. Now as someone who yourself was a student on the course. Can you describe the student experience at Manchester?

Dr Amanda McCorkindale: Of course, so as I mentioned, I, so yeah, I was a Masters student at HCI between 2010 and 2011. My accent, you may or may not be able to tell, it's it's not very Mancunian, I'm originally from the States. I'm from New York. So I don't sound like a New Yorker either - unless I get annoyed. Then the New York comes out. But I did my undergraduate degree back in the US. And I also did a Masters in education in teaching in the US, but it was for secondary school students. And it was when I was teaching that I became disillusioned with the students to an extent, always asking to raise money for like Red Nose Day, things like that. And if you ask them why they were raising that money or who it was going to go and help, they never had an answer. So I remember, you know, being on Google and like I'm searching for degree programmes about humanitarianism. And the Masters popped up at the time. And I was reading through it and I thought, Oh, this is perfect. This is just what I want to do. And I signed up to do the Masters. It was a one-year programme. And it was fantastic. I came down to Manchester. We were the second cohort. So the first cohort from HCI only had four students on the Masters programme. And so we were the second cohort, and there were about 40 of us. And the students that I learned with at the time, came from so many different backgrounds, and had such rich experiences that they were bringing to the table. And now when you look back and see what they're kind of up to it at this point in time, they've gone on to do some of the most incredible things that are just inspiring when you read any of their kind of updates through social media or LinkedIn, etc. But on campus at Manchester, it has changed quite a bit since 2010, 2011. And it's really, I feel like because they've changed Oxford Road a bit, so the main street that goes down the middle of the university, so that it's just the buses, it's pedestrianised. To a large extent, there's a lot of cycling opportunities. So it feels more like a campus as opposed to a university that's been that's in the middle of Manchester. And it's, it's so vibrant. I mean, between the different academic sides of it, and the I used to love and I still love all the research seminars that each year I would put on that are inevitably followed by like a wine and cheese event or some food, some sort of mixer afterwards, where you get to speak with the people who came to give the talk and get to network and have those conversations. But it's just such a vibrant, vibrant community. And there's so many students on campus from different programmes. But within HTRI, it's just this small little oasis of like-minded individuals. So we get to know each other really well. But we're still part of this big vibrant university that has so much going on between the Student Union, but then also if you think about think we've got like three different music venues that are all next to each other, which is next door to my building where my office is. I always think it's fun when you can see the little tour buses out the back of Manchester Academy or something I'm like, 'Well, I wonder who's playing tonight and what's happening tonight'. Or they can't find the stage or at the back and you're giving them directions. So it just feels like it is there's just so much between the music scene and the arts culture within Manchester as a whole with a number of of museums and assets like that. It's just, it's just so vibrant. And it was funny, because so The University of Manchester, we also have a museum. So we've got the Manchester Museum, which is smack dab in the middle of our campus as well. And they've just redone it. And I brought my I've three small children and I brought them to the museum. And there's a big like T-Rex skeleton in one of the rooms. And they loved it. They thought it was amazing. But they also saw one of the staff members with the same badge that I have. And so they asked the staff member at the museum like 'oh, do you know my mummy' because she works here too. I work at the, at the university. So I had to explain I don't get to like work with the dinosaur bones. But it was funny because we did all of that, they had a great time. And then like two days after that, because of the way the museum is set up, there's also like a private section behind some doors that you come in through a different entrance. And it's in one of the older areas of the university, one of the older buildings. And so I had a staff day on that other side of the doors. So I had to walk into these other doors. And I could take a picture of the dinosaur, but from behind and looking into the museum. So I showed that to my children that night. And I was like see, I got to see the museum from this angle today to and isn't that exciting. So I think it's just this nice aspect of you do have museums that you can explore during your lunch hour or that you can just hang out in, like an in the Whitworth Gallery, things like that. And you have opportunities to go to music venues and so many different societies and clubs and sports. You just - the opportunities are endless, if that's what you want to pursue, like every Wednesday afternoon, we don't have any teachings so that it encourages students to join sports teams or activities. So they have that space and we encourage our students to do that as well. But since that time HTRI we have a group of students who have created the HCI Society for those within our department, but also those who aren't in our department but who are enthusiastic about this. So they go on socials and plan activities and things to, to kind of help with that mental health aspect that we spoke about before, but also just to give something to do as well as everything else of how can we help them and creating that like-minded group of individuals. So I've really enjoyed my time at Manchester, and it's completely sacked me and I've been institutionalised. So I'm pretty biased, I'm not gonna lie. So between from doing my Masters, I then went on and did a PhD within HDRI, looking at empathy and humanitarianism, so learning about this through empathy. And then I've been lecturing here ever since. So I'm very much institutionalised. I would have to say, if you're coming to Manchester, you do want to have some good, like, waterproof gear? Because it does rain right. Unfortunately, more than you'd like it to. But if you're prepared, it doesn't matter. So make the best of it, regardless of the weather.

Emily Slade: Oh, brilliant. You mentioned Comic Relief there. Is that something that your students get to discuss how these events are reported on in the media or bigger events like Eurovision, that sort of thing?

Dr Amanda McCorkindale: Yeah. So I think we at the moment, we don't have a module on the media and humanitarian identity, I would almost say, but it is something that comes up and is seen in our dissertations every year, I'm always revising dissertations on the use of the media, within these aspects. So it might be how its portrayed, or how fundraising initiatives look, or how do we use? How have voice has been used. So case studies, things like that been used to kind of represent the stories of different individuals in fundraising initiatives through Comic Relief for if you think of a number of the other ones that are currently going on, but we'll talk about them historically, so like the negative connotations around some of them, like Band Aid in the 1980s, for example, and think about the responsibility we have, not only when we're giving money to these organisations, but being a bit more critical about where's that money going? And who is it actually going to help? And is that something that we're prepared to support? And how do you kind of figure that out? How do you wait up? Because it's easy to say, No, we're not going to give money to this or that because there's evidence you've been, you know, had to give resources to the, the the other side in a conflict or to local gangs or something like that to gain access. But when you actually look at the wider perspective, unfortunately, that's something that may have to happen in order to gain access, to help the people that need it the most. So it's easy to kind of judge based on newspaper titles, things like that of those headlines. Whether it's good or bad, you just read the headline and make that snap judgment. But actually stopping and thinking it through and thinking about the implications around it is incredibly important. So I had a student last year, a couple of years ago that they did their research on their dissertation, looking at how refugees, asylum seekers and migrants, like the language used within different media outlets to kind of portray those journeys and to kind of see how that is reflecting in their different political connotations that they kind of have or how they were leaning in different ways. And the danger that could potentially be when we're talking about the implications that has within society on how they're being viewed or spoken about. And then doing some comparisons around different either European countries and the same types of language that's used to understand how that language may be making a difference. And so for that student, they were really keen to kind of go into journalism afterwards. And to go into that reporting more, we're talking about different the movement of people and things. And looking at it that way. So for them that use of language and understanding the connotation around language in this subject matter was incredibly important. And I think it is, how we can think about it and how we can view it is something that is incredibly important for our students to understand, but it's also something that we do within our school outreach, because we do a lot of outreach activities within the community. So during the earthquake in Turkey and in Syria a couple of years ago, I went and spoke at a local primary school to kind of talk about you know, they were keen to raise money. And I was consulting with the schools within one of the areas in Greater Manchester because they were trying to figure out which organisation would would be best. Yeah, to kind of give them money too, because they didn't want to. They were so wary about making a mistake, but they really wanted to help. So thinking about not just saying, this is the organisation you should support. But here's some different questions you could look at within those organisations to help you form your conclusion on who you want to help but the school thinking about who may have access and actually be able to provide help, and who doesn't have access at the moment to the people who need help at that time? So there's a lot of that as well of how do we kind of help equip the community to ask those questions. So they don't then read or hear about something in the news and think, Oh, well, we've we've done what everybody else was doing. And now we we kind of regret making that decision. But instead, if they have, if they're equipped to ask the right questions, and at least they can say, well, we've done our research into this, and we feel confident with the decision that we made. And we're happy with where we spent the money ultimately, or the resources or the goods, etc. Because there was also I also face questions from those schools about, you know, our students want to send in their, their jackets, they want to send in this, they want to, you know, donate clothes, like that is really kind and it's really thoughtful, but how are you going to get those close to Syria, to help post earthquake, like, logistically, it's very time that will sit in a warehouse somewhere, not actually be of any use. So instead, as much as as classic crashes, it kind of sounds like sending monetary donations at that point is the thing that can help the quickest and the most effective, because you don't need big trucks to transport it over. You don't need to think about how you're going to access it, you don't need to think about where you're going to store it or you know, distribute it, organise it. So even those logistics of trying to help the community in a way that they feel like they're making the best, the most positive difference and thinking about, it's great that they want to do a clothing drive. But perhaps thing about some local local organisations within Manchester, such as homeless organisations, or local tests is an organisation called for Atlas that looks at domestic abuse and things like that. So those are the organisations that would really benefit from those resources. And they could be put to use tomorrow next week. So thinking about how to be a bit strategic with how you're helping in different ways so that you're making the most positive difference.

Emily Slade: I'm just aware of the time, is there anything you're desperate to talk about that we haven't touched upon yet?

Dr Amanda McCorkindale: Ooh, desperate, I'm always desperate to talk about this (laughs). I think one of the aspects that we haven't really spoken about that I think is really important is in terms of like, what do our students do afterwards? Like in terms of careers? Because that's always a question that I get, because a lot of students kind of, they love the idea of this. But then actually, there, they only see them, they only see the job market as going in and being like someone who responds to a crisis. Yeah. And that's not always, you know, if you've got a family and things, that's not always the thing that you can do. So I think it is kind of important to think about careers within the humanitarian sector, but then also the careers that you can get from doing the degree just more generally. So we do have I was I was trolling through my HTRI alumni group that we have on LinkedIn. And I was having a little nosey at the different jobs everybody was doing. And currently, we do have a lot of students that go into management positions at different organisations. So people working for traditional NGOs, for the non-governmental organisations like the Red Cross MSF. We also have more local organisations within that as well or Halo, which is a minds disarmament group. Same thing with Mag. So they do go and work for those organisations either in another country or within the UK, but supporting those countries and supporting those operations that they have. But but then we also have students that go into the more political side of it. So working for the UK government and think tanks and doing research and analysis on big topics we have. One of our students now works for the UN Security Council doing analysis. They've gone on to work for in DC doing a number of different jobs, they work for the Department of Defence sometimes. So we have people going into a lot of different sectors on that side. So you have those working for the non-governmental organisations, we have those working for governmental organisations. And then we have students going on and training to be teachers, or doing a law conversion course and becoming human rights lawyers. We have students who, I know one of my students at the moment is really keen to go in and be a journalist and look at kind of telling the stories of different individuals and how to do that in different ways. But I think it's about the skills that you're picking up. And that we're, hopefully like forcing you to learn while you're doing your degree. In terms of your presentation skills, public speaking skills, your written skills of policy briefs, blogs, podcasts, everything, and anything of how to kind of present that information. Those are all key, regardless of which direction you kind of go in. So we have students that go and do the traditional, like graduate scheme kind of programmes for corporations and industries. But what I've noticed while trolling through LinkedIn, a lot of those students have done those graduate scholar schemes then go in, and they end up being like sustainability and development officer within those corporations. So they're working for a big corporation, but in sustainability. So it's like I can, I can see HDRI coming through right there. So it's, I think, for any of the careers when you then meet up and speak to students later on, they're just doing some of the most amazing things. So I'm always in awe when I get to meet back up with our students and have these conversations, bumped into them at conferences, or see them in organisations that they've created, because they've noticed this gap in the sector. There's just such a drive and such a passion, passion and enthusiasm, that regardless of the sectors our students kind of go into, it really speaks of the the profile of the students on our courses, this just ambition and drive enthusiasm, and this willingness to try to enact positive change in whichever career they kind of go into afterwards. I obviously went down the academic route. And then it's I really like reading, I suppose. And like I said, I can talk for ages. But it is there is that aspect, but I think it is that sense of just wanting to create that positive change. So for whatever career I think our students want to go in, it's important to have those conversations with your lecturers, with our, with your colleagues in the department. And then also within the career service at Manchester. So we have, we have a special careers fair, every year, which our admin within our department put on and help organise where we have alumni come but we also have practitioners come. And to an extent, I feel like it's a bit of headhunting from our practitioners, they come every year because they know they get like top choice on graduates coming out of it. So we have some really good relationships there. But I think it is also the opportunity to kind of see that journey, and see how all of these different paths, how they look in different ways and how they develop over time. We have people come from early career who've just graduated. So what does it look like within the first few years of graduating mid-career late career to kind of help build up that network and build up those that potential job and jobs and to show how it looks in different areas and different ways it can progress. So that's something that our students can all kind of benefit from. And a lot of those, we put some of them up on our YouTube channel as well. I think it's HCI Institute on YouTube, something like that. And it's so you can go back and kind of have a look at what our students are up to and doing. And then there's also just we have a career service at Manchester where you can stay in touch with them for up to I think it's like two years after you graduated, where they'll keep helping you with your CV and your your cover letters and all of that kind of side and really tweaking how you kind of go forward. And I always I always encourage my students when they're doing their dissertation or their assignments, thinking about that at the very start of their degree if they're postgraduate and it's that one year course. You know, where are you hoping to take this? How are you? How are you shaping this programme so it works for you? Because with it being so many different disciplines in different modules, optional modules that you can take, being able to have a story around your degree and around how that will reflect where you want to go with your degree in your career really helps in the long run in terms of marketing yourself when you're at in interviews and things like that and In terms of saying, 'This is why I did my degree', 'this is what I'm hoping to achieve from it'. And this is how it's going to contribute to my job in the long term. These are the skills I'm bringing to the table. I think that story is so important. So whether you're doing with HDRI, or you're doing courses elsewhere, thinking about how that degree is going to really help to shape who you are and your career going forward, is so key, I think. And it brings so much more to the table by being able to say, 'this is how I'm going to contribute', as opposed to just say, 'oh, yeah, I did a great degree on this, but it's all useless'. Like, why have you done it? You know, why did you spend a year doing it? Like, university's fun, but that's a long time. Have fun for three years. So really think about it. That strategic story that you're kind of creating, I think would be some good advice for in terms of career and how your degree fits into that.

Emily Slade: That's all fantastic. Thank you so much for your time today.

Dr Amanda McCorkindale: Happy to help Emily. It's been really fun.

Emily Slade: Thanks again to Amanda for her time. To find out more about the courses available from the Humanitarian and Conflict Response Institute, you can follow the link in the description. Make sure you give us a follow wherever you get your podcasts, and if you’re enjoying Future You make sure to leave us a review. If you want to get in touch, you can email at podcast@prospects.ac.uk or find us on Instagram and TikTok. All the links are in the description. Thanks very much for listening and we’ll see you next time.

Notes on transcript

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