Careers, fellowships, early career research, academic life, and more
| Vesna Curlic As the mid-point of my PhD creeps closer every day, I’m increasingly aware of the fact that I will soon enough have to make decisions about what to do after my doctorate. The prospect of life post-PhD weighs heavily on my mind, especially as I’m someone who went directly from undergrad into a … Continue reading “What do you want to be when you grow up?”: Career anxiety and the PhD
When I started as the SGSAH blogger six months ago, I did so with the anticipation that it would allow me a space to be creative when so much of my PhD life was anything but. What I didn’t expect from this time was to be introduced to so many amazing researchers who, for the … Continue reading The Long Goodbye (And Some PhD Advice)
In this guest post, University of St Andrews PhD researcher Ann Gillian Chu offers advice on what academic conference organisers in Britain might be looking for in their Calls for Papers (CfPs). Similarly, she also explores how British conference organisers can strive to be more inclusive and understanding when opening CfPs to a global audience. … Continue reading Tips for Responding to British CfPs as an International Scholar (and How to Organise a More Globally Inclusive Conference)
In this guest post, University of Glasgow PhD researcher Mariana Rios Maldonado discusses her experiences with racism in academia and explores how we (staff and students alike) can do better at implementing and fighting for anti-racist policies. You can read more about Mariana's research in her '5 Minutes With' interview. Spring of 2013. Sitting in … Continue reading Learning to Not ‘Unsee’: Racism in Academia
In this guest post, University of Glasgow PhD researcher Lucy McCormick discusses how her current research was affected by her time in Tibet and explores how white researchers of non-white communities can confront their own complicity. In 2013 I was living in a part of China with a large Tibetan population – unsurprising, since a … Continue reading Panning Out: Confronting White Complicity as a Researcher of Tibet
For the 2021 SGSAH Summer School, I attended the Academic IP workshop, run by Amy Thomas. Though I have a basic understanding of copyright law, I didn’t know how it pertained to my work as a PhD. Throughout the workshop, I realised this is something every PhD should be familiar with, so I thought I’d … Continue reading Understanding Your Academic IP and Copyright
In this guest post, University of St Andrews PhD researcher Kate Mackenzie discusses the upcoming UK Supreme Court decision on the Scottish Government's Rights of the Child Bill and explains how child laws in Central Africa could set a precedent. It is perhaps a feature of the life of a PhD researcher that, even when … Continue reading Interpreting the Rights of the Child: Look South (a lot further than Westminster)
This guest post is part of our continuous GTA series, where current and former graduate teaching assistants across Scottish HEIs discuss their experiences, thoughts and/or concerns about GTA practice. Here, University of Glasgow PhD researcher Kevin Leomo discusses his experiences with decolonising curriculums as a Graduate Teaching Assistant and explains how we can all make … Continue reading Decolonising the Curriculum: A GTA’s Perspective
A few weeks ago I came across a post on Twitter asking people how many jobs they’d had since they first started working. It got me thinking. I’m currently twenty-six years old and I got my first job when I was fifteen. After doing the maths, I realised that in the eleven years since, I’ve … Continue reading Financing a PhD: The Realities of Being a Self-Funded International Student
This guest post is part of our continuous GTA series, where current and former graduate teaching assistants across Scottish HEIs discuss their experiences, thoughts and/or concerns about GTA practice. Here, University of Stirling PhD researcher Lorna Wallace (who recently submitted her thesis!) looks back at her time as a GTA in English literature and offers … Continue reading Notes from a Previously Nervous GTA
