theUA Blog offers opinion pieces and up-to-date analysis of events in the news.
Notes from the first year of my PhD
When I started my PhD, I decided to create an ongoing note on my phone to document my reflections on navigating academic life and things I’ve learned. Here they are.
Spice up your relationship with your previous achievements, give them some TLC, tell them you’re thinking of them. Sometimes your greatest success is behind you.
It’s okay to have nothing to say
After I started my PhD, I realised that it’s okay to admit you haven’t heard of X concept or X canonical text. This may sound obvious, but it wasn’t to me until I sat in my first PhD working group.
You’re only doing a PhD so you can be a student forever
If you get comments from people doing “real” 9-5 office jobs in “The City” about how you’re “putting off life” by doing a PhD, you’re not alone.
Taking time for yourself isn’t a sign of weakness
I thought that if I was visibly tired, busy and over-worked then that would somehow justify the importance of my work to the external observer. But taking time for yourself isn’t a sign of weakness.
A blog about my fear of blogging and the crippling anxiety I face as I convince myself, three sentences in, that nobody cares what I have to say.
Catcalling: is it really that bad?
Ignoring sexist verbal harassment creates a culture wherein other types of violence against women are perceived to be acceptable. Confronting instances of street harassment is the important first step in tackling all types of verbal and physical hate crimes against women.
