Blog Introduction
Hi, I’m Lauren and I’m really excited to be doing this programme in Data, Inequality and Society.
I studied Geography as an undergraduate degree at the University of St Andrews and spent a lot of my time there thinking about ideas of inequality. Questions that challenged me during my time there included; what do we define as ‘inequality’?, what would a ‘just’ city actually look like?, how can we measure inequality?, is urban segregation ever a good thing if it is determined by choice?
I’m excited to continue to think about these in more depth and to further my understanding of inequalities and exclusion.
After I graduated in 2022 I decided to move to Leeds for a year to work for a charity called CAP. The organisation works with people to help them out of debt through either a repayment plan or insolvency. Working for them further helped my understanding of the consequences of inequality, seeing how much being in poverty and debt impacts every aspect of your life and well-being (makes me think of the quote Laurie shared in the intensive about inequality ‘getting under your skin’). I saw the hopelessness and anxiety of clients and how they felt stuck in their situations. And even after many of them were able to get out of debt, their financial situations meant that their budgets were still broken and they were at risk of having to go back into debt just to afford basic needs.
Having had this experience with this charity, I feel even more passionate about working to change this. I believe that getting this methodological/data training, as well as thinking deeper about inequality itself, will better equip me to help address issues of poverty/exclusion/inequality in the future.
I studied Geography as an undergraduate degree at the University of St Andrews and spent a lot of my time there thinking about ideas of inequality. Questions that challenged me during my time there included; what do we define as ‘inequality’?, what would a ‘just’ city actually look like?, how can we measure inequality?, is urban segregation ever a good thing if it is determined by choice?
I’m excited to continue to think about these in more depth and to further my understanding of inequalities and exclusion.
After I graduated in 2022 I decided to move to Leeds for a year to work for a charity called CAP. The organisation works with people to help them out of debt through either a repayment plan or insolvency. Working for them further helped my understanding of the consequences of inequality, seeing how much being in poverty and debt impacts every aspect of your life and well-being (makes me think of the quote Laurie shared in the intensive about inequality ‘getting under your skin’). I saw the hopelessness and anxiety of clients and how they felt stuck in their situations. And even after many of them were able to get out of debt, their financial situations meant that their budgets were still broken and they were at risk of having to go back into debt just to afford basic needs.
Having had this experience with this charity, I feel even more passionate about working to change this. I believe that getting this methodological/data training, as well as thinking deeper about inequality itself, will better equip me to help address issues of poverty/exclusion/inequality in the future.
