Depression & Academia: There’s No Such Thing as Enough
An early-career academic writes about their struggles with depression and chronic anxiety.
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Neoliberalism, Mental Health, & Academia
One of the hardest things about hearing about a PhD student who was harassed by a lecturer, and who then committed suicide while the lecturer kept his job, was that I wasn’t surprised. It’s not that I didn’t think the story was horrendous – I did. It’s that like most graduate students I am reminded […]
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When Stress Became Real
An anonymous academic recounts their encounters with stress and anxiety towards the end of their PhD.
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Scar Tissue: Self-Harm in Academia
Bethan Jones writes about the relationship between her self harm and her doctoral research.
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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.
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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 […]
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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, […]
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Let’s Talk About Love: Academia, Family, & Relationships
An anonymous contributor reflects on the relationship between love and academia, and on whether the former can really be applied to our work.
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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.
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OCD vs. PhD: A Life in Two Halves
An anonymous contributor shares the positives and negatives of working in academia with Obsessive Compulsive Disorder.
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Everything Else Can Wait: Managing Mental Health Issues During My PhD
An anonymous guest blogger shares their story of adjusting to their mental health issues during her PhD with the help of institutional support services.
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Life as a High-Functioning Depressive PhD
An anonymous guest blogger diversifies the perceptions of depression by reflecting on their experiences of being a high-functioning depressive.
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Anxiety & Academia
An anonymous blogger reflects on the relationship between anxiety and academia.
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The Twilight Zone: After the PhD, Before the Academic Job
You’re close to submitting your PhD, to passing your viva voce examination with flying colours, and to be awarded your doctorate. At various stages in these final months of your existence as a PhD student certain scary thoughts – of the practical kind – enter your mind repeatedly and persistently. When will my university email […]
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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 […]
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16/03/2016 “Writing for Survival: Publishing & Precarity in the Lives of Early-Career Researchers” (Liverpool)
I’ve been invited to deliver this paper at the The University Press Redux Conference in Liverpool. You can find the full programme here, and the abstract for my paper below. The processes, practices, and politics of publishing have a substantial influence on the careers and the lives of early-career researchers. A book – be it under contract […]
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Making Your Mark: Academia, Social Media, & Employability
I delivered this invited talk as part of an event called The Digital Academic, organised by Jobs.ac.uk and Piirus and held on 23 March 2015 at the University of Warwick. The aim of this session was to introduce ECRs and PhDs to how social media can help your academic profile, skills, and career prospects, but […]
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