Profile
Franziska Paul
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About Me:
I live in Glasgow, Scotland, with my partner and our black cat. When I am not working as a lecturer at the university I am a keen beekeeper! We have two hives of honeybees in the garden 🐝🐝. I also enjoy doing yoga 🧘♀️, playing Dungeons and Dragons 🧙, reading crime novels 🔪, and spending time in the forest🌲.
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My pronouns are:
She/her
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How I use Geography in my work:
My work involves (human) geography through the way I think about and make sense of the world. This means that I think about the social, economic and political actors, structures, and process that I study as they exist in space and in relation to other such spaces, how they impact space and place, and how they are themselves influenced by space and place.
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My Work:
I am a Lecturer in Political Economy at the University of Glasgow where I do social science research 🧐 and I also teach students 👩🏫.
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Being a social science researcher involves lots of things: reading about the topics I study 📖, choosing case studies 🗺️, doing fieldwork 🔍, and conducting interviews 💬 and surveys 📋. I also write publications about what I have found out 📚, and present this at conferences to other researchers 🎤. Sometimes I am invited to another university or on a podcasts to speak about my research as well.
As a teacher at university, I teach courses which includes: holding lectures (which is what lessons at university are called), setting assignments and exams, and marking them. I am currently teaching a course called ‘Democratising the Economy’ which explores how we could make our economic systems more fair and just ✌️, and better for the people and the planet 🌱.
I also have some other roles in the University, for example, I am the student mobility coordinator for my subject. I work with exchange students who come to the University for a semester or a year, to study abroad here. These students from from all over the world 🌎🌍🌏
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My Typical Day:
I am an evening/ night person so waking up in the morning is often hard for me 🥱 Once I am up, I really enjoy my morning coffee and I have it outside when it is not raining ☕️🌞 I work from home two days a week, and I am in university, or as we say ‘on campus’, three days a week.
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When I work on the university campus, I usually teach before lunch and have meetings in the afternoons. Some of the meetings are with students and others with colleagues to discuss new projects.
When I work at home I usually spend my days reading and writing.
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Education:
I grew up in Germany and went to school there. A few weeks after I turned 19 I moved to Scotland to study, first at the University of Aberdeen, and then at the University of Glasgow, where I now work – so in a way I never really left education!
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Qualifications:
I went to school in Germany, where I gained an ‘Abitur’, which is equivalent to A levels/ Advanced Highers. The German system is a bit different to the UK systems. In Germany, we study between 10 and 12 subjects until we graduate from high school but only have state-wide exams in 5 of these. While I took Geography throughout my time at school, I did not write my final German state exam on Geography. Instead, my exam subjects were: German, English, Maths, Sport Science, and History.
I moved to Scotland for my undergraduate degree, which I did in Geography-Sociology (Joint Honours) at the University of Aberdeen. I really enjoyed Geography, and particularly Human Geography, so I decided to keep studying. Because I had done well in my undergraduate degree I got a scholarship for my Masters degree. I chose to study a Masters of Research in Human Geography at the University of Glasgow. During the Masters degree I decided that I wanted to be a researcher. I applied for funding to do a PhD (a philosophical doctorate), and I got a studentship which covered the university fees as well as a monthly stipend (which is a bit like getting paid to study!). I then studied for a PhD in Geography for four years, also at the University of Glasgow.
I have since also gained a teaching qualification (a postgraduate certificate in Academic Practice) as part of my work as a lecturer.
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Work History:
I had a lot of part-time jobs as a pupil and student: as a nanny, delivering newspapers, waitressing in beer gardens (in the summer), and being a sports trainer for trampolining (which I also did as a sport!).
When I moved to Scotland I was in full time education so I had restrictions on how much I could work. I continued to work in the service industry as a waitress and bartender in my summer breaks. During my Masters and PhD I became a widening participation tutor. For this work I visited high schools across the west of Scotland to teach skills for further and higher education. I really enjoyed this work and it has helped me become a lecturer!
After my PhD I was a postdoctoral researcher (meaning a researcher with a PhD) and I worked on big, international research projects for which I did fieldwork and research in Germany, the UK, and the US.
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Current Job:
Lecturer in Political Economy
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Employer:
University of Glasgow
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My Interview
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What's your favourite food?
Pizza! I could eat pizza everyday.
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