Like so many of us, I didn’t see a global pandemic coming when I started my PhD in 2019. I was going to use oral history and creative methods to document refugees and asylum seekers’ experiences of everyday life in Scotland. I planned convivial zine-making sessions, walks across the landscape of Glasgow deep in conversation, … Continue reading The poetry of everyday life
In this final blog post for Mental Health Awareness Month, Alix Gallagher writes about compartmentalisation of the many, varied roles we often find ourselves engaged in while we're conducting PhD research. She looks at some practical ways in which she has been able to divide those roles and prioritise, especially during a part-time PhD. Photo … Continue reading Navigating Hyphenation and Mental Health
In this post for Mental Health Awareness Month, current blogger Garry Mac talks about social anxiety, a condition that can be debilitating and which can have all kinds of effects on your PhD research. He'll discuss his own experiences with the condition, dig into why ‘networking’ events can be crisis-inducing for those with social anxiety, … Continue reading My Life in Research: Coping with Social Anxiety
Week 3 of our Mental Health Awareness Month posts come from Jodie Russell, a 3rd year PhD researcher at University of Edinburgh whose research explores the intersection of mind and medicine. In this guest post, she explains how our concept of the self can influence mental health. Мышь 2 by George Shuklin is licensed under … Continue reading The Person That I am and How that Affects My Mental Health
This week (9th May – 15th May 2022) is Loneliness Awareness Week set by UK Mental Health Foundation . Loneliness is one of the key factors in many people’s experience of mental health issues. During the pandemic, people spent most of their time staying at home and suffered more loneliness than before. However, emotional loneliness … Continue reading PhD Study is Never a Journey on Your Own
During May, the SGSAH blog will focus on mental health in recognition of Mental Health Awareness Month which runs from 1st to 31st May. In this first post, blogging intern Garry McLaughlin introduces the concept of mental health and how to look after yours while you study. Mental health is the overall state of a … Continue reading Mental Health and PhD Studies: Broad Strokes
This week, blogger Garry McLaughlin gives a quick overview of his research journey so far, including re-scoping practical work and allowing for methodologies to change as you encounter new scholarship. At the tender age of 39 and with roughly 10 years of illustrating, making comics and facilitating community arts under my belt, I entered academia. … Continue reading Isn’t Time Queer?
This week's guest post is by Emma McCabe, a SGSAH-funded researcher at the University of Stirling, who was awarded a Holstein Dissertation Fellowship from the University of California, Riverside for the academic year 2021-2022. In this article, she details some of her adventures duringher visit. Having applied to The University of California, Riverside, for a … Continue reading Academia Abroad: My Fellowship and Research Trip in California
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…
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