Amidst the chaos of the infamous earthquakes, there was a ripple of discontent within postgrads. Emails from the university, justifiably, focused on undergrads. In September, there were exams to organise. In February, there were lectures in tents. Postgrads twiddled their thumbs and waited to get some attention. Then came June: no exams, no lectures, but once again we got thrown off campus and left to drift aimlessly wondering how we were supposed to carry on with our work. "What about us?" postgrads asked.

It felt symptomatic of a wider attitude towards postgraduates. The university is set up for undergraduates. No one begrudges this – we were all undergrads once too – but it gets tiresome. It turns out if you do a little digging there isn't even a formal definition of "postgraduate". This might not seem like a big thing, until you start questioning postgraduate-related earthquake response and can't even get a straight answer on who is responsible for whom.

The reason for the ambiguity is that postgraduate degrees are run primarily by departments, with less centralisation than undergraduate courses. To a certain extent this makes sense. Each thesis is special and different, and requires specialist knowledge to undertake. That's what we trained for through undergrad. So the best people to look after postgrads will be, most often, the "grown-ups" in the same department.

But when really big things happen, like your city falling down around your ears, specialisation goes out the window. We found last year that everyone had the same problems. We all lost access to work space, be it laboratories, performance space or offices. We all lost momentum. We all lost our mojo. And there was no university-wide "postgraduate response" to answer masses of questions. It wasn't all about extensions; it was also about emotional support, security, access to our research. Was UC still a good place to be a postgrad? (Was it ever?)

Just to add to the difficulty, historically there has been no centralised body of postgraduates. We are, by nature, isolated; sitting in our labs and offices muddling away on our own. Herding cats is a piece of cake compared to wrangling postgrads. The PGSA has taken several incarnations over the years, and the current representation is the strongest I've ever seen it, but they still battle with complacency and isolation.

So the needs of postgrads have too long slid under the radar. We lack representation on the UCSA executive, we lack a cohesive community, and as seen after the earthquakes, we've lacked recognition and care from the university. Postgraduates feel like the invisible part of the university community. We carry a huge load of undergraduate teaching; we bring in research funding, government EFTS-based funding, multiple years of fees and student levys. But sometimes postgrads may as well be a colony of lepers.

Things are improving, in part due to the belly-aching last year. Second year Master's (i.e. thesis) students are now covered by the Postgraduate Office; during term time there are weekly seminars on thesis skills, many of which are "emotional" rather than "technical"; practical skills workshops, including improving employability post-postgrad, are becoming regular occurrences. Postgrads are more visible than they've ever been in my tenure at UC; it's almost good to be a postgrad for a change.