After spending six weeks at Gonville & Caius College on a summer internship, Kian Richardson was keen for more. He is now returning to Cambridge for a postgraduate degree this autumn.
Kian took part in the SHARE scheme in summer 2022 and left feeling he had unfinished business at Cambridge and Caius. Kian was hosted by Caius as part of the SHARE Summer Research Experience, a six-week, paid, summer internship which aims to enhance diversity and inclusiveness to widen participation in postgraduate studies at the University of Cambridge. SHARE is co-sponsored at Cambridge by the ESRC (Economic and Social Research Council) through its Doctoral Training Partnership, and is taking place again in 2024.
Kian, who is from Burnley, read politics at the University of Westminster and is coming to Caius for a Masters in Ethics of Artificial Intelligence Data and Algorithms.
He says: “It sounds like quite a pivot, but a lot of the work that I was doing was on the tech industry – tech and diplomacy, tech and finance and things like that – so I'm kind of following the same topic. It isn't as much of a wild swing away from politics as it seems. I'm looking to go into a tech policy-related field after the masters.”
Kian graduated from Westminster in summer 2023 and applied for a politics Masters, but funding did not materialise. A nine-month internship with the United Nations’ migration agency in Laos – arranged through a link with Westminster – softened the blow.
“I was doing policy work, all sorts of different things, and it was great. A wonderful experience,” he adds.
Kian reapplied, to three different courses, and this time was successful in receiving funding through the Cambridge Trust and Caius, where he will matriculate in October.
He adds: “Before SHARE I hadn’t really thought about doing a Masters at all; I didn’t think about Oxford or Cambridge until the SHARE programme. It helped me realise that this is what I was going to do next. Doubts that I might have had about whether going to Cambridge was even possible in the past fell away quite quickly at SHARE. Also, I just really enjoyed the actual process of research being in Cambridge.”
Kian is looking forward to returning to Caius.
“I'm just going to try and get as much out of it as I possibly can,” Kian adds.
