This guest post comes from Dr Clare Edwards, who has recently completed her AHRC Collaborative Doctoral Award PhD with Glasgow Life at the University of Glasgow. Clare's PhD investigated the emergence of cultural policy in Glasgow in the decades leading to European City of Culture in 1990, based on archival research and oral history interviews with key decision-makers. … Continue reading How to complete your PhD when you’ve got more difficult things to deal with – and how your PhD can help
Every year of the PhD is hard. Year 2 is host to the dreaded ‘second year slump’, when you still have a long way to go, but the novelty and newness of doing your PhD is wearing off. Year 3 is full of the pressure of writing and editing, picking examiners and choosing when you … Continue reading Top 4 tips for surviving the first year of 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
Two weeks ago my laptop died. On the plus side, my University department arranged to have it looked at quickly, and sent it off to be repaired within a few days. It finally came back safe and sound on Thursday. In the meantime, West Highland College UHI lent me a laptop to use, which meant … Continue reading My top 5 software recommendations for PhD students
When I took over as editor of this blog I had (what I thought was) a great idea for a series of posts: the PhD day in pictures. I imagined arty shots from lots of different PhD students, showing their daily workplaces, tasks, research, etc. However, each week I have thought about writing this post … Continue reading PhD Routine: The Impossible Dream
So as I have probably mentioned too many times, I am currently part of a small team organising a conference. We have been working on this for such a long time I can't believe that the time has come: the conference starts today! In this post I want to talk a little about the process … Continue reading Conference Crunch Time
Last week we published part 1 of Catherine Weir's experience of applying to an SGSAH artist-in-residence position. This week we're delighted to share part 2, that looks in detail at Catherine's time at RSPB Mersehead, with reflections on the benefits of being an artist in residence during your PhD. Last April, Roseanne Watt (University of Stirling) and … Continue reading Guest Post: On residencies, and why you shouldn’t give into chronophobia, Pt. 2
I’ve been having internet issues today - this was meant to be posted at noon. It's thrown my schedule off somewhat and it's really annoyed meeeeee-uh! Actually, I find myself troubled by my reliance on the internet these days. When I was an undergrad, my laptop didn’t have Wi-Fi, I didn't get Facebook 'til 2nd … Continue reading Is the internet my best friend? (probably not)
Last Thursday I went along to the City Arts Centre in Edinburgh to check out the SGSAH Meet the Host event, and to learn more about some of the opportunities available in this year’s Doctoral Internship/Artist-in-Residence programme. The event was great overall, and very busy. The City Arts Centre was an excellent venue – plenty … Continue reading SGSAH Meet the Host Event
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