PhD – Page 2 – Dr Nadine Leese

Irritable Bowel Syndrome (IBS)

20/02/2014

An anonymous doctoral researcher recounts their experiences of IBS and the impact it has had on their studies and career.

Academic Juggling: PhD vs CV

22/01/2014

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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, […]

The Road Not Taken: PhD Training, Academia & Alternative Careers

14/01/2014

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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 […]

Lyme Disease

11/01/2014

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Amber Davis tells the story of interrupting her PhD due to Lyme Disease, though the nature of her illness was unknown to her at the time.

Video Chat: How to Secure a Job after your PhD

07/01/2014

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Q&A, 22/01/2014, Jobs.ac.uk, Live Video Chat

Academia & Social Media: Practices, Politics, Problems

09/12/2013

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This post is both a continuation of my previous thoughts on social media in academia, and the product of several workshops and talks I’ve been asked to give on the topic this past year. Most notably, it is a response to and follow-up from a presentation and spirited discussion on social media at an impressive […]

When to Say No: Peer-Review Culture & Working for Free

25/10/2013

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Many of you will have been following debates about the amount of free labour many academics – and particularly postgraduate and early-career researchers – provide almost on a daily basis. Much more persuasive and articulate writers than me have written about this issue on their blogs, in higher education sections of newspapers, and other online […]

Surviving Your Viva Voce

15/02/2013

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This post is based largely on my defense of my doctoral thesis in December 2011, though much of what I write here also comes from the mentors whose advice and help I’ve been fortunate enough to have since the very beginning of my Ph.D. (and, indeed, before). If you’d like to hear a more personal […]

Research Survivors: Staying Focused & Motivated

07/02/2013

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Dr Nathan Ryder is a freelance skills trainer and consultant. He completed his Ph.D. in maths at the University of Liverpool in 2008. He works exclusively with postgraduate researchers and research staff. Last year he started the Viva Survivors podcast, and in January 2013 he published his first e-book, Fail Your Viva. Find him on […]

Peer Reviewing & Book Reviews

07/11/2012

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Up until now we’ve taken a closer look at presenting, teaching, writing and editing, and, staying within the realm of publishing, in this post we turn to two final aspects of this area: the challenges of acting as a peer reviewer and of writing book reviews. It is likely that you will have a chance […]

About My Blog & Me

04/11/2012

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This blog is about academia and me. It’s about academia and you. It’s about sharing my experiences of my profession, and about sharing knowledge and skills which are too often taken for granted. It’s about those academic voices which are either not heard at all, or are not heard enough. It’s about challenging dominant ideas of what academics should look like. It’s about redefining what it takes to be an academic and how academics are expected to present themselves, their lives, and their work. It’s about making ourselves and our profession simultaneously vulnerable and stronger, so that we can help change what makes us feel inadequate, ashamed, or unprofessional. So that we can help make academia more inclusive.