The challenges, experiences and everyday stuff of PhD life
Embarking on PhD research can be daunting. This short guide is intended to offer you a broad introduction on how to hack your life and become a better researcher. We’re all different, so there’s no one-size-fits-all series of tips, apps and organisational methods, and I won’t tell you what to do. Instead, I’ll take a … Continue reading General life hacks for the PhD researcher
Hello everyone! I’m Garry McLaughlin and I’ve just taken over the SGSAH blog. I’ll be here for the next 6 months and, to kick things off, I figured it would be useful to introduce myself and my research and give you an idea of what you can expect while I’m looking after things here. I’m … Continue reading Introductions…
Well, this is goodbye! I’ve had a brilliant six months as the SGSAH blogger, and this week is my last. If you look back through the archives, you will see many bloggers of yore lamenting how quickly the time goes by. It really does, but I’m so happy with the work I’ve done in my … Continue reading The Time for Goodbyes
This week, Blogger Vesna Curlic talks about her experience of doing a PhD in a pandemic. She reflects on two years of researching in this new world and how it has changed the course of her life and thesis. It’s the two-year anniversary of lockdown in the UK. It is also, informally, marks the two-and-a-half-year … Continue reading Two Years of a Pandemic PhD
This week, blogger Vesna Curlic takes us through a tour of the full gamut of exhaustion metaphors, in an attempt to think about overworking and rest. If you've hit the wall, or you're at the end of your rope, or if you're running at a breakneck place, or.... Last night, I went roller skating. This … Continue reading When You’ve Hit the Wall: Thoughts on Exhaustion
Blogger Vesna Curlic joins us this week with another addition to the Working while PhDing series. This week, she is reflecting on her own PhD internships, her priorities, and the fear of "what comes next," post-PhD. I have less than a month left in my time as a SGSAH blogger, so naturally, I’ve become a … Continue reading Finding Balance: PhD Internships and the Work-Life Divide
In this week's post, PhD student Steven Harvie tells us about his placement at the National Library of Scotland in Edinburgh, continuing our series on working while doing a PhD. Steven tells us about the serendipity of the archives and the great pleasure of actually going into an office (especially one as beautiful as the … Continue reading Exploring the Depths: Working with Archives at the National Library of Scotland
This week's guest post is from Andy Porter, who is currently SGSAH's Digital Curator. In his role, he sees a lot of PhD students giving the 'elevator pitch' version of their research and today, he reflects on how he developed his research tagline and how you might think about developing yours. In the early stages … Continue reading Communicating Your Research: Titles, Taglines and Elevator Pitches
This week, PhD researcher and events intern Emily Hay continues our series on working while undertaking a PhD. In this post, she considers how the different roles she's had (professionally and academically) have affected her own self-perception and identity as a researcher. As PhD researchers we can wear many different hats, and we often switch … Continue reading Breaking the Fourth Wall: Working in Researcher Development as a PhD Student
As part of our ongoing series on working while undertaking a PhD, guest writer Liam Alastair Crouse brings us into his world as a PhD student and researcher/caseworker for a Member of Scottish Parliament. How much do the worlds of folklore and politics have in common? More than you might think, Liam says. It’s all … Continue reading The Place Between Folklore and Politics
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