Starting a PhD can be a disorienting experience. The sensation of uncertainty can be even worse, if, in just few months, you find yourself in the middle of a pandemic and your GPC is approaching. In this article, Giulia, 1st year PhD student in Philosophy, describes how the role of her research has changed during the first months of her doctoral experience.
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.
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.
So, everyone is now in isolation, only going out for essential supplies and one government-mandated walk per day. It’s now even harder for PhD students to get away from their studies and relax. Giles Penman offers a possible solution to the seemingly unending loneliness.
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!
Do you feel that COVID-19 is affecting your PhD life? Do you feel the need to adjust to the current crisis? If the answer to both questions is yes, then this blog post is for you.
Stuck at home trying to be productive? Missing the company of fellow researchers? Never fear! The Postgraduate Community Engagement Team and other services at the university have a wealth of options to keep you connected with your colleagues. Don’t be a stranger!
How is it like to grow up with Professor Mum? And what if you decide to study in the same area and end up seeing your mum on campus and have to dodge being her student? This is my experience of growing up with an academic at home.
The PhD workload can weigh quite heavy at times. Zakiyya explores how taking breaks can actually increase productively, as well as improve well-being.
PhD students are all brain and no brawl. True? Not really. The life of a PhD student is more than just the university. Imagine then if you have to juggle the many challenges of the PhDLife with being a Muay Thai fighter. Nora Castle, PhD student in the department of English and Comparative Literary Studies, knows this reality very well. How does she do it? Read more to find out the exciting and very bruised daily life of an academic fighter.
Have you ever gotten a patronising comment about the subject of your research? English Literature PhD student Deborah talks about some of the reactions she has encountered when telling friends and colleagues about her topic – female nineteenth century authors – and why she thinks that is and why it should not happen.
It’s Friday night and you’re alone again… in your room, staring at the same words on the computer screen that you’ve seen for the past three years staring straight back at you. It doesn’t feel great, but you know you can’t escape this. Jenny Mak offers some quick hacks to hopefully make the isolating phases…
I feel very lucky to have completed my doctorate in History of Art because if I get bogged down with writing I can always look at pictures! In this post I would like to encourage scholars working in other disciplines to also consider the visual as a valuable historical source. But how do you start when looking at paintings? Here I offer a few suggestions from my practice…
Do you have a mood swing during the winter season? Do you feel that the gloomy winter affects your PhD life? If the answer to both questions is yes, then this post is for you.
There is lots of guidance available on publishing academic papers. Sharing your research at conferences, however, is the relative unknown. And this can make the prospect quite daunting. Zakiyya sheds some light on the topic, sharing a few of her experiences and offering tips she has picked up along the way.
Exploring the emotional processes involved in both being and becoming academic
Musings of a nutty professor in the making
Molding Research in the mainstream
Because there's always room for improvement
The evolving tale of my PhD as it happens
physio.phdstudent.daydreamer
Language, Digital Media and the Family
