Profile
Caroline Wesson
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About Me:
I’m a senior psychology lecturer at a University in the West Midlands where I teach and research in my specialist area – social psychology with a forensic and cyber spin. Outside of work I love keeping fit, cooking, camping and Marvel films!
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I live on the outskirts of Wolverhampton with my husband and 10 year old daughter. I love keeping fit and attend female bootcamp workout sessions 4 or more times a week (sometimes as early as 6am!). I also starting running last year, something I’ve always hated! However I signed up to run 60 miles in a month to raise money for Cancer Research and found myself (almost) enjoying running by the end of the month so I’ve carried on. Earlier this year I ran 100 miles in a month to raise money for MIND. Knowing that you’re doing some good is a real motivator to keep going, even when it’s cold, wet or snowing outside.
I enjoy going camping and going to festivals. It’s such a good feeling being outdoors and getting back to basics, spending quality time with family and friends.
I also love cooking, especially Italian and Indian food. I eat far too much pasta which is probably why I work out so much!
I also love reading and watching films (especially Marvel films)!
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My pronouns are:
she/her
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My Work:
I am a senior lecturer in psychology, focusing on social and forensic psychology.
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I am a senior lecturer in psychology. My teaching and research focuses on social psychology but with a cyber and forensic spin. I am interested in understanding how we perceive other people, especially those who have been a victim of online crime. In my work I have very focused on the student experience and run the undergraduate psychology student newsletter which keeps our students up-to-date with all things happening in the school of psychology. I also supervise a lot of students at undergraduate and postgraduate level, supporting them throughout their independent research. I recently won dissertation supervisor of the year at our Student Union awards which I’m super proud of!
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My Typical Day:
I often work from home still so will check my emails as soon as I can and then plan my day. Some days are research focused and some days are teaching focused. All days have a lot of meetings and emails to deal with! If I have an on campus teaching session I’ll spend the day in my office and take the opportunity to catch up with colleagues.
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If I’m up early I’ll dash down to bootcamp to do an hour’s workout before coming home to take my daughter to school. At the moment I am still working at home quite a lot so once I’m back in the house I’ll check my emails – we get a lot! – and check my diary to see what meetings I have that day. These will often be meetings with students to support them in their assessments or independent research or with my colleagues to discuss research projects or new teaching plans. In between meetings I will on some days work on my research, collecting and analysing data and writing this up for publication in an academic journal. Other days are more teaching focused. I may record an online lecture, run a live online session or come onto campus to run a seminar with the students. I also have to keep my lectures up-to-date and so spend time finding new content relevant to the area I’m teaching and seeing how this can be made “real” for example by linking the session to a newspaper report. I’m lucky in my job that I can often collect my daughter from school at 3.30pm and then carry on work later in the evening.
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What I'd do with the prize money:
If I won the £500 prize money I would spend it on developing our outreach activities for budding psychologists! We run our yearly Girls4Science event where we invite in girls from local primary schools to take part in lots of fun STEM activities but we don’t want to leave the boys out and plan to extend this to develop a Boys4Psychology event as males are currently under-represented on psychology degree programmes. As part of these events we like to provide STEM based goody bags for the children to take away and inspire them to find out more. The prize money would help support this for a number of years.
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Education:
Joesph Leckie Academy
Walsall College of Art
Walsall College
University of Wolverhampton
Manchester Metropolitan University
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Qualifications:
GCSES: English Literature, English Language, Maths, Physics, Chemistry, Biology, Geography, Geology, French
AS-Level: Physics
A level: Psychology, History, Geography, Art, General Studies
National Diploma: Art
BSc(Hons): Psychology
MSc: Forensic Psychology
PhD Psychology
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Work History:
Athena, Virgin Records – shop assistant
STAMP theatre – costume and set designer
Walsall Museum and Art Gallery – visitor assistant
Lecturer in Psychology/Senior Lecturer in Psychology
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Employer:
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My Interview
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How would you describe yourself in 3 words?
Bootcamp crazy psychologist
What did you want to be after you left school?
Art therapist
Were you ever in trouble at school?
No ;-)
If you weren't doing this job, what would you choose instead?
Run a nice, chilled out art cafe by the sea
Who is your favourite singer or band?
The Damned, Cardiacs, Levellers, Beatles. Too many great bands to choose from!
What's your favourite food?
Pasta....or pizza....or curry
If you had 3 wishes for yourself what would they be? - be honest!
More time to spend with my family, happiness, continued good health
Tell us a joke.
Does the name Pavlov ring a bell?
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