Month: March 2012

A perverse pastime of mine is to Google the well known and creatively successful who have made it to a PhD – and dropped out, only to find fame elsewhere. Californication’s David Duchovny (the title of his uncompleted doctoral thesis – Magic and Technology in Contemporary Poetry and Prose); The Offspring’s Bryan “Dexter” Holland (Molecular Biology)…

One thing I have learned over the years is, although the problems might be similar, no two research students are alike. What works for one person may not work for another. For this reason I have developed a habit of ‘reverse advice’ lists…

While, superficially, the thesis rules seem simple, they do not really help you make a lot of the decisions you need to make an acceptable scholarly text. This is where a lot of the trouble starts.

My colleague, and ‘go to’ person on all things teaching related, Ruth Moeller was kind enough to write a guest post for those of you who are looking for some tips to improve your teaching. Ruth is the Senior Advisor on Learning and Teaching in the Design and Social context college at RMIT University and editor of the Teaching Tom Tom blog. This post is written from the point of view of a student in your class who has some ideas for making your teaching better. Enjoy!

I’m wondering – are there any similarities between moving house and doing a thesis?

This guest post is by Dr Eva Alisic, Research Fellow at Monash University who researches and blogs on the topic of trauma recovery in children and adolescents. Eva spent some time at Harvard University while she was studying. In this post she shares some of her tips for getting abroad. You can find Eva as …continue reading.

Being a PhD student and managing life is difficult enough. Add to this living in another country, cultural differences, language barriers and financial difficulties and you will see how international PhD students feel when they complain about life. Here is some suggestions for those students

Jess Drake (aka @soilduck) suggested she write a post on how to get into a PhD program a little while ago. I thought it would be a good follow up to Ehsan’s popular “Should you do a PhD?” because it can be surprisingly difficult to get into a program. After helping a few friends and family members through the process of getting in, I am aware of how much ‘insider knowledge’ can be required.