In this post, SGSAH blogger Garry Mac discusses a controversial topic - reference management software! While everyone has their own thoughts on this, if you're drowning in a sea of sources, this article might just convince you to get a little software help. PhD research requires a lot of reading and citation of sources – … Continue reading Why you should consider using a reference manager
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'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
This week, Blogger Vesna Curlic grapples with what makes a good PhD routine and her journey towards finding a routine that works for her (for now, at least). Make sure to read until the end for some exciting happenings over on our SGSAH Instagram page! One of the best and most challenging part of doing … Continue reading Strict but Compassionate: Finding a Routine as a PhD Student
Sometime in early 2020, when it sunk in for everyone that the pandemic was not just going to be a weeks-long affair, many PhD students and ECRs were suddenly scrambling to replicate some semblance of the office environment. I’m one of those people. I love the office environment. Pre-pandemic, I loved going into the office … Continue reading An Ode to Virtual Writing Groups
Why do we do what we do? I ask myself this question with some regularity. When I’m stuck at my desk, fiddling with the same sentence for hours until my eyes cross or despairing at the state of the academic job market, I find myself asking why on earth anyone would want to do a … Continue reading Academic Delights: Thoughts on Gratitude
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)
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