Profile
Karolina Urbanska
My CV
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Education:
I grew up in Poland where I went to school until I was 14 years old. After that, my parents decided to move to Northern Ireland so I had to change schools and learn English. In my first year of GCSEs, I failed most of my subjects because I struggled to understand what topics we discussed. In the second year of the GCSEs, I started to understand more so I had to retake most of the exams from the previous year. After this, I ended up staying in the same school for my A-levels. I was very happy when I found out that at the end, I was accepted to a university in Northern Ireland to study Psychology, first for my undergraduate and then for my PhD (doctoral degree).
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Qualifications:
For my GCSEs, I have been awarded 11 GSCEs (A*-C) and for my A-levels, I did Psychology, Art and Design, Polish. I also completed an
OCR National Diploma Level 3 in Media Studies.I then received my first degree in Psychology at Queen’s University Belfast, followed by PhD in Psychology at the same university.
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Work History:
Before I got my first grown-up, full-time job, I worked as a sales assistant, in a factory on the assembly line, and I did some other casual jobs in the university. After I finished my doctorate, I moved to France for my first research job where I stayed for 18 months and since April this year, I live in Sheffield and also doing research.
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Current Job:
I am a research associate at the University of Sheffield. This means that all of my time I spend on doing new research (and not, for example, teach).
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About Me:
I grew up in Poland and during my GCSE I moved to Northern Ireland with my family. I speak three languages (English, Polish, and French – in that order of fluency). I like going to the gym, hiking, cooking, photography, politics and science.
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My Typical Day:
I am usually in work at 8.30am and I spend most of my time at the computer. Depending on a day, this means I would be either reading what other scientists have published recently, designing new experiments, analysing new data, our writing new articles. Sometimes I have meetings with other people I work with to discuss new ideas and tell each other what we have been doing recently.
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Read more
My work is very flexible, which means one week I may be working 60 hours and another week 20 hours. You may think that the 60 hours sounds daunting, but during those weeks, I do not even notice the time go by because I am so excited about getting things done. Weeks where I work less are weeks when I am thinking about new ideas or spend time reading – it is hard to do it in a form of 9-5 job. Creativity needs space and time so I tend to work less during those weeks to allow myself to be inspired and do not put pressure on myself to figure out new ideas right away.
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What I'd do with the prize money:
I would organise a series of events to inform young people how they can get into careers in social science.
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My Interview
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How would you describe yourself in 3 words?
sociable, curious, driven
What did you want to be after you left school?
I wanted to become a fashion photographer, but my parents did not want me to leave to go to London so I compromised and applied for some courses closer to home - this is how I ended up in Psychology.
Were you ever in trouble at school?
I used to skip classes quite regularly if I felt they were not helping me and I could be more productive doing something else, but funnily, I never got in trouble for this.
Who is your favourite singer or band?
Muse
What's your favourite food?
Pizza, ramen, hummus
If you had 3 wishes for yourself what would they be? - be honest!
To always have luck on my side and to continue being persistent even if things go wrong! After this, I don't need the third wish.
Tell us a joke.
In our new project, we study if people laugh at jokes and sometimes we find that people do not find jokes very funny and sometimes they think that these jokes may be offensive - are you sure you want me to take a gamble to guess what you will find funny?
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