A PhD is often inspired by a particular vision–either your own passion project or a passion project of a more senior researcher. When you pitched the thesis to funders and your faculty, the project was going to be a sweeping, world-changing, life-changing research idea that would proceed without any hitches. And then you have to deal with real life.
You might love your PhD. Or you might have been told you are supposed to love your PhD. And love is weird, and complicated. PhDs are messy and complicated. Let’s talk about feelings.
A couple of people in my wider circle have recently asked me about how to get started on a PhD proposal. This advice is mostly
On the one hand, of course a PhD is ‘hard’–as in ‘has a high difficulty setting’ and also ‘is a lot of work’. It’s 3+
Look, the true answer is ‘probably not’. I’m not being discouraging here, I’m talking about cold hard maths. Here are 10 reasons why 2021 is unlikely
Subjectively, the final stages of a writing project often feel the most ‘stuck’, boring and slow. Why is that, when objectively they are often the opposite?
Paragraphs are parts of sections, and a section is like a flight of stairs, taking you efficiently where your thesis needs to go. A new way to think about paragraphs as a ‘step in your argument’.
Some workplaces and research cultures explicitly or implicitly run so that every conversation is actually a battle for airtime, and it’s common to try to sabotage other people’s chances. We should be working towards the exact opposite: energising, authentic, worthwhile, academic conversations. That’s what we love about getting together with our nerd pals.
You don’t get knocked down and bounce back stronger. At least not immediately.
It’s a typical piece of advice to give authors of articles and theses, that you need to explain the ‘so what?’ of your contribution. But in English you can use this phrase in two very distinct ways depending on how you say it.
