Practical Training
Short hands-on sessions run by departments, offices and invited practitioners, and how to get a place.
What a workshop is
A workshop is short and practical. It runs for a session or a few, it is built around doing the thing rather than hearing about it, and it is deliberately small so that whoever leads it can watch people work and correct them.
Workshops are announced with everything else on events.
Who runs them
- Departments, for their own students: a method, a piece of software, a laboratory or field technique, a form of writing the subject expects.
- University offices, for skills every student needs regardless of programme — using the library and its catalogues, referencing and avoiding plagiarism, preparing a CV and sitting an interview, using the systems the university runs.
- Invited practitioners, brought in by a college to teach how the work is actually done outside a classroom.
- Registered student clubs, for their members and often for anyone who wants to come.
Who they are for
Every workshop states its audience: a particular year of a particular programme, all students of a college, staff, or anyone. Some assume knowledge you are expected to arrive with, and the announcement says so. If you are unsure whether a session is pitched at you, ask the office named on it before registering — that is better than taking a place someone else needed.
What to expect
- Bring what the announcement asks for: a laptop with the software already installed, your student card, a draft of your own work.
- Arrive at the start. Hands-on sessions build on each other and a late arrival cannot be caught up quietly.
- Where places are limited, the announcement says how they are allocated and when the list closes.
- If you have a place and cannot come, tell the organiser so it can go to someone else.
- Where a workshop gives a certificate of attendance, its announcement says so. A certificate of attendance is not academic credit.
Asking for one, or proposing one
Staff, offices and registered clubs may propose a workshop: the subject, who it is for, how long it runs, the room and equipment it needs, and who leads it. Take it to the department or office that would host it.
Students who all need the same skill can ask their department for a session on it. That is often exactly how a workshop starts.
Training that runs over several weeks is listed as a training course rather than a workshop.