Brighton Calling. Why Study at IDS?

Today I welcomed our new students to IDS.

One of the things that makes IDS different is our teaching programme--we have 120 Masters students and 70 PhD's on the books at any given time.  They come from about 50 different countries around the world.

These folks will receive University of Sussex degrees, but be largely taught by IDS staff.  One of the criteria for student selection is whether the candidates have nonacademic experience--have they worked in the real world?  Most of them have and they bring with them a tremendous amount of energy, experience and tough questions about development. 

We like to think they get a very different experience at IDS--a place where research, policy and practice come together. We treat them as Members of IDS, which means we try hard to integrate them into, for example, the research teams, annual reviews, Board meetings, and research projects -- into the very life of the Institute.  

What do they think?  We take student feedback seriously and we use student feedback scores in performance appraisals for Fellows and we report feedback scores in summary form to our Board.  

But if you want to know what 2 of our students from last year think about IDS (and one of them is in the above picture) then watch this video. 

I saw it yesterday for the first time (Directors are always the last to know) and was pleased with the results. 

My only criticism was that there was no driving Clash soundtrack.