Tagged: research
[News] New Generation Thinkers 2015
It’s official: I’ve been lucky enough to have been selected as one of this year’s New Generation Thinkers by BBC Radio 3 and the Arts and Humanities Research Council. And of course this wouldn’t be my blog if I didn’t share a few lines on the process that led to last week’s melodramatically long-embargoed announcement and to my first ever appearance on national radio. After completing the short online application in December 2014, I was notified in February this year that I was one of the sixty applicants who had been shortlisted and invited to a training and...
Someone’s Doing My PhD!
This post is a brief reflection on how to deal with the fact that you might not be the only one working on “your” topic.
Social Media Skills for Students
Social Media Skills for Students is a new resource to help university students learn how to use social media to their advantage and in a professional manner.
The Blank Page: Some Writing Strategies
This post is dedicated to the intimidating blank space that is the first page of the yet untitled document which, at some point in time, is supposed to contain a well-argued, thoroughly researched, and original argument to stun your expecting reader. I’ve never been one of those people who is blessed with the ability to sit down, create a new document, and start typing the first draft of a research publication with the confident knowledge that once the words are on the page I can return to them as many times as I like to edit and refine. Instead, it takes...
Dark Thoughts: Why Mental Illness Is on the Rise in Academia
6 March 2014, The Guardian Higher Education Network. I was invited to comment on academia and mental health for this article.
The Road Not Taken: PhD Training, Academia & Alternative Careers
Perhaps rather predictably the poem from which this post takes its title, Robert Frost’s “The Road Not Taken” (1920), tells of a traveller’s decision to walk one road in favour of another when he encounters two divergent paths on his way. He tries to predict, as far as possible from his position, where each may lead. Conscious that his choice comes with unpredictable implications, he is aware also that, once his decision is made, he most likely won’t return to explore “the road not taken”. We are told that the choice he made that day “made all the...
Academic Juggling: PhD vs CV
Some of the most common questions with which PhD researchers are concerned focus on how they should set their priorities during their doctoral studies. What else, and how much of it, should you do next to researching and writing your thesis? As so often, I can’t answer this for all PhD students in all disciplines, but I wanted to try and give you an overview of some useful starting points if you’re hoping to prepare yourself for the academic job market during your doctoral studies rather than after, particularly in the humanities and social sciences. So some of...
Trauma & the PhD
Vicki Adams is a PhD student in English Literature, and shares her insight into what it’s like to go through higher education as a sufferer of abuse and trauma.
OCD vs. PhD: A Life in Two Halves
An anonymous contributor shares the positives and negatives of working in academia with Obsessive Compulsive Disorder.
20/06/2016 “The New Academic: Career Development & Social Media for ECRs” (University of Exeter)
I’m excited to have been asked to deliver two workshops for PhD students and early-career researchers at the University of Exeter: one on how to strategically develop your CV in the pursuit of an academic career, the other on how social media can act as a useful tool academic career development. If you’d like to know more about these workshops and/or want to discuss hosting similar events, please get in touch with me via email (admin@nadinemuller.org.uk).
Making Connections Through Social Media
Research Seminar, 30 April 2014, Women’s Research Network, University of East Anglia
The New Academic: Academic Careers & Social Media
Keynote, 22 March 2014, Contemporary Women’s Writing Skills Development Programme, Leeds Metropolitan University
Academic Job Interviews
Academic job interviews can take a variety of forms, and I’ve experienced a few different kinds of job interview – both from the perspective of a candidate, as well as from the perspective of a member of the interview panel. As with any public speaking engagement, preparation is essential and managing your nerves on the day is a challenge. I found that the interviews I attended after I’d started teaching in a full-time position were much less nerve-wracking, so if you’ve already had teaching experience and got over the initial horror of having to stand in a lecture...
Academic Job Applications
It is notoriously difficult to advise people on how to get shortlisted for an academic job. In the end, someone can satisfy all of the relevant criteria but not get shortlisted simply because someone else satisfies them to a greater degree. The reality is that not all ‘minimally qualified’ candidates can be interviewed; this is simply a matter of practicality, and of course it is frustrating for applicants who fall into the ‘not qualified enough’ category. However, more frustrating is not getting shortlisted because you simply haven’t put together a good application. There is nothing you can really...
