PhD Journey: Week 3

This week I started to really get to grips with what my ‘research journey’ is going to be like. In particular, an excellent presentation from the person responsible for Lecturer Researcher Development started giving me lots of practical things to get my head around.

PhD Journey: Week 16

Papers vs PhD

The paper I mentioned wanting to get started on last week is the one that I presented to the pre-submission workshop pre-Christmas. The feedback on that was largely favourable, so with my supervisors I made the decision to press on with…

PhD Journey: Week 12

Working whilst it’s quiet

On campus this week it was a bit of a ghost town. Normally I’d like that, but it was so quiet it was actually quite eerie. I’m struggling at the moment to balance the momentum and enthusiasm that seeing peers and colleagues…

PhD Journey: Week 15

Dealing with not being well

Back to the grindstone, and the excitement of January has been completely wiped out by a pretty gruesome cold. I initially thought I had tonsillitis, but then got a whole load of other symptoms and had to go to bed. No…

PhD Journey: Week 11

It’s the last week of term, and the first three months of my PhD journey has absolutely whipped by. If I’m honest I’m still trying to find my feet, but I think I’m doing more right than wrong and my supervisors are happy with progress, so I’m not going to worry too much about something that…

PhD Journey: Week 5

Change of direction #1

According to some of the literature I’ve been reading, I should expect to change direction or focus a few times during the PhD process. I wasn’t convinced that would apply to me, but (like many before me, I expect) it looks like…

PhD Journey: Week 13

Time for a break!

A couple of people have told me that it’s really important to take proper holidays during my PhD, to stop thinking about research for a bit, so I didn’t look at my laptop for the whole week of Christmas.

PhD Journey: Week 6

Literature Reviews

It’s lovely having time that I can just dedicate to reading. That being said, it might take a while before I stop feeling guilty when my wife looks into my office and I’ve got my feet up reading a book! I’ve been rattling through…

PhD Journey: Week 7

Networking

Academic networking is an odd concept. I’m very familiar with business networking, both formal BNI-style (*cough*don’t do it*cough*) and less structured network building throuhg courses, events, common interests and online. But the idea of doing that…

PhD Journey: Week 9

Building a relationship with my supervisor

I read in the book I’m reading about the PhD process (https://www.google.co.uk/books/edition/How_To_Get_A_Phd/k-K8SzpEaRgC?hl=en) that building a relationship with your supervisor is one of the…

PhD Journey: Week 4

This has been planning week. I set my aims and objectives last week, now I need to know how to do it. The final thesis is a…

PhD Journey: Week 10

Feedback

Feedback is a gift you can choose to accept or not.

My wife told me this phrase really stuck with her on a course she’s attending, and I love it. I’m pretty good at asking for feedback on projects, even though I really don’t…

PhD Journey: Week 8

Conference

I was thinking last week about how to build my academic network, and this week offered one opportuntity that I really enjoyed and which seemed effective. I attended an EEUK event in London all about Entrepreneurial Ecosystems, and whilst the talks…

PhD Journey: Week 14

Working Abroad

We were still off work this week, having a short break in southern Spain, but I did start picking up the threads again. There was one facilitated session (working with businesses, rather than on my research) that I needed to attend, but…