Summer Wonderland or Christmas in the Tropics

Everyone in the Western Christian world is now wishing each other Happy Holidays. Whether you believe it or not, it is part of many people’s lives and it influences our calendar year. But how is it to spend Christmas in the southern hemisphere, where signs saying Let It Snow abound but the temperature is reaching 40 celsius? Our blog editor, who is currently back home in Brazil, shares her views about melting on Christmas and the breaks we all need to take sometimes.

Pint and PhD: an opportunity for research students to meet and share their work

How is the process of talking informally about your research? No researcher is an island, even though the research experience can be quite lonely for some, knowing how to share your research in a more informal way but still among peers is not only a good ability to have, but it can also open your mind and see what you are doing in a different light. In this post, Giles Penman shares his experience of talking about his research topic at the fortnightly Pint & PhD session organised by our Postgraduate Engagement Team.

Going back to the laboratory bench at 64

The oldest postgraduate student on the books at the University of Warwick? After years of experience as a researcher and working in the industry, overcoming adversities, it is still possible to go back to the university and quench a never ending thirst for knowledge. This is Tudor Dawkins’s story of how he found his way back to university and research as a mature postgraduate research student.

Online Conferences… the new normal?

By Lucia Collischonn

It seems that even if we get out of lockdown, social distancing measures will be around for a while. It makes it hard to plan anything, especially events that involve socialising and networking. And, to be honest, what are conferences? They are social events with an aim to present our research and exchange ideas and experiences with other researchers. Only there’s more to it than just that. In a time in which everything has been moved online, how will we cope with the new normal? Our editor shares her experience and her thoughts on Online Conferences.

And what about you, did you join an online conference, reading group, or any other online social event during this quarantine? What did you think? Can you imagine what that would be like? Let us know! Comment below, tweet us at @warwicklibrary or email us at libraryblogs@warwick.ac.uk!

Fallow Fields, Seeds and Academic Gold Rush in the Corona crisis

Planting, harvesting and the stolen time of rest. Can farm life provide a metaphor for academic life? Is the current COVID-tunnel finally creating an occasion for rest and nourishment or did it leave many researchers in even more pressure to perform, in a new virtual world, having to pay the costly interests of time debt? Do you feel the need to find golden productivity before your peers? Our author reflects on the many challenges faced with planting and sowing, nourishing your land, a waiting for your crops to yield results, be it your plants or your ideas.

A change of heart

Completing a PhD is an overwhelming ordeal for most, but an excruciating experience for some. David Conrad offers us a candid insight into his decision to move away from academia…

Notes to my younger self

As PhD students, we tend to live day-to-day while keeping in mind the potential of a future in academia. We leave little room to think about how we might frame today’s experiences when they become our past. Dr. David Whillock, who finished his doctoral research in 1986, reflects on the lessons he has learned after…

Finishing your PhD in another country

Have you ever wondered what it would be like to grab your laptop, research, notes, books and all other belongings and move across the world for the last year of your PhD? Anna Darling is here to share with us some reflections about her L.A. relocation story…