Isolation Station: Beating the Pandemic Blues as a Researcher

Maria Cohut

Ph.D. work can feel isolating at the best of times. With a pandemic going on, and having to stay put for safety, being a doctoral students can become an even lonelier experience. Maria shares some tips to help you regain a sense of community.

What strategies have worked to help you feel less isolated at this time? Tweet us at @ResearchEx, email us at libraryblogs@warwick.ac.uk, or leave a comment below.

Why is Academia so damn SLOW?!

By Merle Van den Akker

Do you feel that you are staying behind when you compare yourself to your friends or colleagues who went into the commercial, business, or corporate world? Why do we feel that academia is so much slower than the market? Read more and find out!

If you have experienced this long process and have tips for dealing with it, tweet us at @ResearchEx, email us at libraryblogs@warwick.ac.uk, or leave a comment below.

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!

How to Survive Being at Home

By Merle van den Akker

We have to stay at home. Indoors. All the time. And that’s hard. But it’s for keeping ourselves and others safe. So, it’s time to stop rebelling and acting like a 12-year-old, and to just make the best of a tough situation. So, what can you do from home?

If you have any tips on what to do when staying at home, tweet us at @ResearchEx, email us at libraryblogs@warwick.ac.uk, or leave a comment below.

And That’s OK

By Zakiyya Adam

Doing a PhD is demanding at the best of times, let alone amidst a global pandemic. Zakiyya discusses why productivity should not be the priority for PhDs right now.

What have you found to help you cope during the global pandemic? Tweet us at @ResearchEx, email us at libraryblogs@warwick.ac.uk, or leave a comment below.

On dealing with Anxiety in a highly competitive environment (Part 2 – Confidence)

By Alice Cuzzucoli

One of the most challenging aspects we face in academia is how to measure our self-worth. On top of the constant amount of work we deal with, this further burden can make us feel like we are misinterpreting what we have to do to be “that exceptional”. So, when it comes to comparing ourselves to others, it is natural to feel inferior, or inadequate even. Ultimately, our confidence is what suffers from it, both from an individual and a collective point of view. In the second part of her series of essays, Alice discusses how her relationship with self-worth and competition affected her confidence during her PhD.

How do you deal with feelings of worthlessness or inadequacy? Tweet us at @ResearchEx, email us at libraryblogs@warwick.ac.uk, or leave a comment below.

How to Make Working From Home Work

Working from home or hardly working? Are you struggling to make it work while using the same space and the same screen for work, leisure, entertainment and socialising? Merle shares her tips on how to get the best out of this situation and create a good, productive mindset..

How to Maintain a Good Relationship with Your PhD Supervisor

Doing a PhD is an exciting thing. To make sure you stay on track, you have a supervisor supporting you through this minefield! And as helpful as they can be, navigating your relation to your supervisor can be a minefield on its own. Essentially, it’s a difficult relationship where it often isn’t clear what the exact guidelines are. And that can get confusing.

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.

Managing Time in a PhD

One of the biggest benefits of a PhD is its flexibility. There are no set working hours. If you do not want to work 40 hours a week, don’t. If you prefer to have the Wednesday and the Saturday off rather than a regular weekend, do it. If you do not want to work one day, or one week, you do not have to. But unsurprisingly, this can backfire. Due to a lack of structure, what you need the most in a PhD is good time management!