{"id":6690,"date":"2025-02-10T14:01:54","date_gmt":"2025-02-10T14:01:54","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/blogs.kent.ac.uk\/polir-news\/?p=6690"},"modified":"2025-02-11T15:17:11","modified_gmt":"2025-02-11T15:17:11","slug":"beyond-the-lecture-hall-meet-dr-raluca","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/blogs.kent.ac.uk\/polir-news\/2025\/02\/10\/beyond-the-lecture-hall-meet-dr-raluca\/","title":{"rendered":"Beyond the Lecture Hall: Meet Dr Raluca"},"content":{"rendered":"

Ever wondered what lecturers love about teaching and connecting with students? We chat with one of our own, Dr Raluca Popp<\/strong><\/a> (middle) about her experiences, her love for podcasts, and advice for thriving at university.<\/p>\n

What\u2019s your favourite part about teaching\/interacting with students?<\/strong><\/h3>\n

That I learn something new every day. I don\u2019t refer here to need to keep up with current political affairs or the latest developments in my field of study. It\u2019s mostly new points of view, ideas and experiences that are completely new. As an academic, and an introvert, I kind of live in a bubble. It\u2019s nice to break that and listen to what students have to say. It\u2019s always a different perspective, which then allows me to (I hope) better understand my students and relate to them.<\/p>\n

What’s your favourite thing about your course\/the course you teach?<\/strong><\/h3>\n

I teach quantitative methods, and I know stats isn\u2019t usually a student\u2019s favourite subject. I can relate, I struggled with it myself as a student and didn\u2019t enjoy it much at first. But if you stick with it, there\u2019s often a lightbulb moment when things finally click, that\u2019s my favourite part, seeing my students experience that realisation. Interestingly, that moment sometimes happens after they\u2019ve graduated, when they\u2019re out in the workforce applying what they learned.<\/p>\n

“It\u2019s always rewarding to get an email years later, where they tell me they finally understand the value of knowing how numbers are used and why it all matters.”<\/p><\/blockquote>\n

Another thing I enjoy is showing students that statistics is actually all around us. For example, if you visit the Guinness factory in Dublin, you\u2019ll find a plaque dedicated to William Sealy Gosset, the statistician who developed the t-test. He created it to help the brewery analyse small sample sizes in quality control, to make sure they maintain the best possible beer production.<\/p>\n

Are there any podcasts you are enjoying at the moment?<\/strong><\/h3>\n

I love a stats detective story: More or Less BBC Radio 4. The short episodes offer engaging stories each week, making them perfect for sparking discussions and use as an intro in my lectures.<\/p>\n

I\u2019m also a loyal listener of This American Life, since my stats lecturer made us listen to an old episode as homework. Best homework I had to do! Other than that, I have about 10 food podcasts that I listen to religiously.<\/p>\n

What are your tips for staying on top of your studies at University?<\/strong><\/h3>\n

Use your calendar! Set reminders on your phone. Work in the cloud. Organise that mess on your desktop, and put things neatly into folders. Oh, and the one I repeat over and over and I have the feeling no one listens to: please do your reading before the lectures. That\u2019s right, not the seminars. The lectures.<\/p>\n

What advice would you give to first-year Raluca<\/em> when you first started University – and would you do anything differently?<\/strong><\/h3>\n

Don\u2019t be afraid to ask questions! No one will think you\u2019re stupid if you ask for clarifications. Quite the opposite, it shows interest. And you\u2019ll be surprised, but usually you\u2019re not the only person in the room who has the same question but is too hesitant to ask.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Ever wondered what lecturers love about teaching and connecting with students? We chat with one of our own, Dr Raluca Popp (middle) about her experiences, … Read more<\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":84049,"featured_media":6693,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":[],"categories":[722],"tags":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/blogs.kent.ac.uk\/polir-news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/6690"}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/blogs.kent.ac.uk\/polir-news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/blogs.kent.ac.uk\/polir-news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blogs.kent.ac.uk\/polir-news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/84049"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blogs.kent.ac.uk\/polir-news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=6690"}],"version-history":[{"count":6,"href":"https:\/\/blogs.kent.ac.uk\/polir-news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/6690\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":6705,"href":"https:\/\/blogs.kent.ac.uk\/polir-news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/6690\/revisions\/6705"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blogs.kent.ac.uk\/polir-news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/6693"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/blogs.kent.ac.uk\/polir-news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=6690"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blogs.kent.ac.uk\/polir-news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=6690"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blogs.kent.ac.uk\/polir-news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=6690"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}