I recently read a comment about the stress of a PhD, which personally hit me to the core: “If you’re emotionally unstable or vulnerable, it’s not a good idea.” This was me, 3 years ago. Or in fact, 5, 8, or 10 years ago. I’ve lived with depression, anxiety, and OCD for a decade of … Continue reading Starting a PhD with existing mental health problems
Being almost 3 years into my PhD, I’ve written my fair share of academic writing. This also means that I’ve had a huge amount of feedback from my supervisor on my writing style. There are some mistakes that I’ve made (and continue making), which I wish I had got out of the habit of doing … Continue reading Top 5 tips for writing your PhD
Organisation is one of my favourite things. It’s sad but true. I love the feeling of creating order out of chaos, straightening out my world, and getting everything out of my head and onto a list on paper. But when you start a PhD, you have to up your organisation game. A lot. It’s so easy … Continue reading Staying organised during your PhD
When you’re hyper-focussed on working on your PhD, especially when you get towards deadlines and you’re furiously writing or editing, it’s easy for things to fall through the cracks, and for other areas of your life to start going awry. This always reminds me of Bridget Jones saying, ‘it's a truth universally acknowledged that the … Continue reading Having a life outside the PhD
When you start a PhD, you’ll often hear that your research should be treated like a 9 to 5 job. If you’re like me, this will probably cause you to panic and question what on earth you’re doing – don’t a lot of us start PhDs because we secretly didn’t want a 9-5 job?! I … Continue reading How many hours should you spend on the clock, and when should you spend them?
Our latest guest blog comes from Charlie, a first-year PhD student in the Architecture by Design program at the University of Edinburgh. He is studying the architecture of prisons and the potential for such architecture to directly exert moral influence upon inmates. And he is tired of hearing references to Foucault. I went to the National Library … Continue reading Library antagonisms
I’m in the slightly unique position of having lived in catered university halls throughout my entire academic career, from the very beginning of my BA to the (almost) end of my PhD. Since I’ve now got 7 (seriously, 7?! I just did a double-take) years of experience of halls, from both an undergrad and postgrad … Continue reading Should you live in halls during your PhD?
I don’t know if it’s just my intense perfectionism, but I have a real fear of finishing things, signing off, and saying I’m done. I’ve always been terrible at doing so, handing in essays right on the deadline during my undergrad. Once or twice, I even edited an essay within an inch of its life … Continue reading Perfectionism and the PhD: the dread of completion
This is the second half of my ‘what to do’ two-part blog, sharing my tips for how to cope with two of the major trials of PhD life: feeling overwhelmed, and feeling stuck. Last week I looked at feeling overwhelmed, and shared some of my tips for getting through those tough times (check it out … Continue reading What to do when you’re completely and utterly stuck
There are many struggles you’ll encounter during your PhD experience, two of the major ones being feeling overwhelmed, and feeling completely stuck. Both are things I’ve come up against quite a lot over my 2 and a half years of being a PhD researcher, especially the former due to my depression and anxiety. So, in … Continue reading What to do when you feel like you just can’t do it anymore
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