Someone’s Doing My PhD!
This post is a brief reflection on how to deal with the fact that you might not be the only one working on “your” topic.
Category: Guides to Academia
Academic Juggling: PhD vs CV
Some of the most common questions with which PhD researchers are concerned focus on how they should set their priorities during their doctoral studies. What else, and how much of...
We Regret to Inform You: On Interview Feedback
Interview feedback is difficult to approach, both giving and receiving. As someone who has more often been on the receiving end, I’ve found directly helpful feedback to be the exception...
The Twilight Zone: After the PhD, Before the Academic Job
You’re close to submitting your PhD, to passing your viva voce examination with flying colours, and to be awarded your doctorate. At various stages in these final months of your...
Academic Job Interviews
Academic job interviews can take a variety of forms, and I’ve experienced a few different kinds of job interview – both from the perspective of a candidate, as well as...
Academic Job Applications
It is notoriously difficult to advise people on how to get shortlisted for an academic job. In the end, someone can satisfy all of the relevant criteria but not get...
Fail Better: Surviving the Slings & Arrows of Academic Fortune
Academia often seems filled to brimming with misanthropy merchants, doom prognosticators and naysayers. It is true, however, that we do have to deal with an unusually high degree of scrutiny,...
The Research Excellence Framework (REF)
Unless you’ve been asleep in the library for the past few years, you’ll almost certainly have heard about the REF (Research Excellence Framework); but you might be less aware of...
Public Engagement
I realise that for many of you none of what I write here will be news. Especially in the social sciences and the creative arts, the practices that have in...
