Tag: PGRs

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news

Catch Up, 26th January 2015

Previously in this sort-of link round-up slot I’ve had some kind of format where I talk about things in certain orders and so on. But after having spent a lot of time writing out to a clear structure lately (he says, conversationally referencing his next book) I thought I would write as things occur in this post.

Work

I spent some time away last week at my first KESS Grad School of the year; it was great to work with a group of MRes scholars, hear about their research and look at some interesting case studies. Very happy that I have some more of these in the coming six months. This week I’m away in Bangor for a couple of days, talking to staff and PhD candidates about vivas, and on Friday morning I’m at LJMU to talk about viva prep there too. Busy times!

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creative thinking

Creativity Post Round-Up

While I get to work putting my next book together, I thought it might be a good time to create a few posts summarising some of the regular series that I shared towards the end of 2014. I created a total of seven posts in my little series on creative thinking; I think that after my new book on the viva is finished I’ll return to sharing some more on creativity, it’s a topic I enjoy a lot!

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creative thinking

Creative Thinking Tuesday, 9th December 2014

This is my last Creative Thinking Tuesday post for 2014, and I thought it might be good to do something short, simple and hopefully helpful. In October I shared two posts of questions for PGRs, and when I was thinking of ideas for this today’s post it struck me that this might be a neat framework for this post. So: Ten Questions To Help With Creative Thinking!

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news

Catch Up, 8th December 2014

Hello! How are you doing? This is the last catch up post for this year, although on 31st December I plan to share a “year in review” post that will summarise what I’ve done this year, some of the most-read posts I’ve written and other projects I’ve been involved with. And on the 1st of January I currently plan to talk about my goals and big projects for the year ahead!

The last few weeks have been good, a mix of working from home – which is lovely because I get to play with my daughter more – and workshops in Sheffield. I’m at Liverpool for most of this week, and starting to plan ahead for January’s workshops. I’ve also been doing a fair bit of writing too!

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viva

Common Qs About The Viva: How Can I Avoid Nerves?

It would be very easy for me to say that PhD candidates shouldn’t worry about being nervous. After all, I’ve finished my PhD, and any negative things I remember about the experience are in the past. I’ve also got several years of experience of talking to candidates and graduates: I can’t say “don’t worry” except in a reassuring I-know-you-won’t-believe-me way. If you are prone to nerves, there is very little I can do in a piece of writing to help you avoid nerves entirely.

But perhaps I can share some things with you that could minimise their impact. I’ll do my best.

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news viva

Viva Survivors Podcast: Past, Present, Future

In case you didn’t already know – like I don’t talk about it enough – I produce the Viva Survivors Podcast. It’s an ongoing project of interviews with PhD graduates about “their research, their viva, and life after the PhD.” It came out of a desire to share the stories of what the viva was like for people; I had an idea that the horror stories that everyone seems to know about were, for the most part, myths – I wanted to share real stories. I was, and still am, delivering viva preparation workshops, and I thought as well that by learning more about what people had done to prepare for their vivas I would be able to help PhD candidates more.

I also thought it might be a lot of fun to do! And as time went on I realised what a tremendous learning experience it was for me too.

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viva

Common Qs About The Viva: Can I Make Notes?

Common questions I get asked during viva preparation workshops often relate to what candidates can or cannot do during a viva. Can candidates take time to think? (yes!) Can they call friends for advice? (no!!) Can they record their viva? (tricky one; ask your graduate school for guidance) Probably the most common question of this type is candidates asking if it is OK to make notes during the viva.

I not only think it is OK – I think it’s almost essential that candidates make notes as they go through the viva.

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work

Making the Viva Survivors Podcast

I’ve been producing the Viva Survivors Podcast for around two and a half years now, and every now and then I get asked questions about how I do it and how everything works. One side of it is the interviewees and their stories, and I ask (a lot!) for volunteers to come and share their stories. Then there is the nuts and bolts of how I produce episodes. Podcasting is often seen as a useful means to communicate research and ideas about doing research, so I thought I would take an opportunity to talk about the tools and services that I use. Hopefully this is helpful to someone reading!

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news

Catch Up, 24th November 2014

Is it that time already? Seems like only yesterday that I was writing one of these posts, where does the time go… It’s been a busy couple of weeks for me, delivering more than a few workshops and keeping a few plates spinning. I was very happy to facilitate on a KESS Grad School recently; I’ve been involved with the programme for a number of years now, and it’s great that that’s continued on. Long train journeys to get to south Wales though, but perfect for lots of reading!

On This Blog

Almost two weeks ago I shared a favourite idea generation process of mine, which resulted in me coming up with some more Christmas presents for my wife! I reviewed The Path Of A Doer, and answered a common question about the viva (“what’s the worst question they can ask?“), before sharing a series of posts that started with me thinking about to do lists. I shared some experiments that I’ve run on myself to try to find things that work for me. In fact this week I’m doing another, capturing things in three columns on a big sheet of paper. Column headings are Tasks, Short and Emails (Short is for the little tasks that are not urgent but need doing at some point OR need doing soon but are not important). It’s just another little test to see what works. What works for you?

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series

To-Do Lists: Odds and Ends

So far this week I’ve shared some thoughts on to do lists, why they didn’t work for me, some experiments that did work for me and how I have tried to keep organised. Today’s post is a sort of collection of related points and ideas. As you can probably tell, I’m still thinking my way through a lot of things like this. Experiments to see what works for me are the key – so I have to keep experimenting and finding what is effective.

Effective and Efficient

I like Tim Ferriss‘ distinction between actions and behaviours that are effective and those that are efficient. The definitions of these – as he gives them – are totally objective, but their applications to individual circumstances could be subjective. Effective actions are actions that deliver results for a goal better than other actions that are aiming at that goal (and the award for bad paraphrasing goes to…); efficient actions are just that, they do things well – but crucially with no thought as to whether or not the actions need to be done at all.

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