Dimensie

Dear readers,

One of the new projects for this year’s RedacCie committee is to take a look at another perspective of student life. Tutors, professors and researchers are people we encounter every day and are to some level dependent on. However, we do not know much about their perspective on teaching, their tasks or everyday life processes. As a student, it is easy to overlook them as a very diverse group of people with different backgrounds. 

We interviewed a few teachers who were kind enough to share their experiences with us. First, we have Steven Watson who told us the interesting story of how he moved here from the UK, why he did it and what he prioritises for his work at university. Enjoy!

RedacCie

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Background 
Steven Watson is an assistant professor in the Psychology of Conflict, Risk and Safety group at the University of Twente. He was an undergraduate in Psychology in Newcastle University, Mastered in Research in Psychology (Northumbria University) and did his PhD in Health Psychology at a School of Pharmacy (University of East Anglia). Then, however, he swapped back to Psychology and Economics as a postdoc researcher, and now ended up in Legal Psychology (what a trip!). He started his PhD in 2010 and finished in 2014. He moved to Enschede in 2019. 
One might ask how Steven came to Enschede despite his fulfilling career in the UK. He conducted research at Lancaster University as part of the social psychology group which just so happened to have close ties to the Conflict, Risk and Safety group at University of Twente as well! One group would frequently visit the other and he really enjoyed working on a project and living in Enschede for a month. Then, even though he had a permanent assistant professor position at Newcastle University (which he underlined as being really rare, as you almost never get to work at your “home university”), Steven decided to move to Enschede due to the amazing group of people he met there. As you see, the way to becoming an assistant professor is rarely a straight line!

Working as an Assistant Professor with ADHD and Autism
Furthermore, Steven talked about his experience of working at the University of Twente with ADHD and Autism, which got diagnosed rather recently. He describes how this combination of autism and ADHD is not easily recognised because you don’t necessarily fit the stereotypes of either, and so he did not get a clear diagnosis for years. He believes that it makes him as good at his job as he is, he e.g. quickly responds to emails (before he forgets) and plans and communicates very carefully with his students. Students often find his lectures engaging and he believes that the extra effort he has to put into practicing really pays off in this regard. However, there are challenges too. You have to be careful with e.g. the feedback you deliver, that it is not too much because it can be hard to not focus on all the small details. If students get too many points of improvement at the same time, they are more likely to shut down and be overwhelmed. While Steven enjoys teaching, it is especially exhausting for him to concentrate for so long, and to manage the often loud environments in classrooms and lecture halls. More energy needed to be invested since he had to get over some personal inhibitions while e.g. giving a lecture. However, Steven described how adapting to a character to some degree and being very precise with his time management was necessary for him to handle this obstacle. By adapting his technique, he rarely faces this problem anymore. His lectures needed to be structured more carefully and it is a different challenge to handle anxiety than for other people. However, he highlighted how putting in the effort for him is more than worth it and that it now rather helps than suppresses his job performance. 

Moving from the UK
Steven described some advantages and barriers about moving from the UK. Cultural differences do exist, however, some stereotypes he did find not to be true. Of course, for him it was a big step to move from the UK (he mentioned as well that especially his granny did not particularly love it), but culturally he did not describe it as very difficult. One big difference is that in the UK, things such as lectures or workshops are less often mandatory. Here, many tutorials are in fact required and there is more face-to-face contact time with students overall. As teachers, you have more control in the Netherlands, but the downside is that it is easier to make errors when setting deadlines (he mentioned as well how one day, he will teach a course where no planning will go wrong!). One particularly difficult thing is learning the language, as the courses here take many extra hours a week which is not very feasible. There is a huge difference between A2 and B1 which is hard to overcome. He also gave the advice that one should never attempt to learn Dutch and German at the same time!

Hobbies Outside of Teaching
Steven can not take up a lot of projects at the same time, however he has some interests which sometimes are even helpful with his ADHD and autism. He has two dogs he loves to spend time with, especially because the dogs have needs which need to be taken care of and can not wait when work needs to be done. This is very good for his time management. Also, video games (and video game music) help with relaxation and being distracted (the Skyrim soundtrack was especially high on his Spotify Wrapped in months when his marking load was high!). Steven also described how being into a specific kind of music brings someone more into contact with other people who share the same niche interests.

Contribution to Society and how his Research is Linked to It
Steven works in multiple areas involving a large number of aspects of Safety and Security Psychology. For example, he gives lectures to the police about investigative interviewing in order for them to solve their crimes successfully. Moreover, he has evaluated interventions for the Probation Service for England and Wales with his Master students in the field of intimate partner violence. And those are not even all the fields of research and teaching he is active in, his work thus has an impact on different levels and can not be pointed to only one issue. 
In his opinion, his biggest impact comes from teaching. He knows that most students probably do not become researchers themselves, however they will each contribute to society in different ways. So, the most important thing is to inspire students to love Psychology and research, and use the skills they learn as psychology students in whatever they do after their studies. Because of this outlook, teaching and student supervision takes priority for him, even though his own research is sometimes a bit slower due to this. Supervising student projects, like BSc and MSc theses, is the part of his work he finds the most rewarding and significant. Doing this quantitative and qualitative research with students takes a lot of time in his opinion, however he always finds enjoyment during interesting conversations with students.