Search results for: academic fashion

Hey – Before I start, here are some upcoming events I’m doing at Cambridge University, which are open to the public: A lecture at Wolfson College, Cambridge on Tuesday 6 June at 5:30pm, which touches on themes from my new book with Simon Clews ‘Be visible or Vanish’. There’s an in-person option if you can …continue reading.

To generalise ridiculously, there are three types of people: People who start a research project intending to finish it on time. People who start a project not really caring when they finish it. People who don’t care about finishing a project on time until they fly past the deadline. If you are doing a PhD …continue reading.

It’s been a funny old start to the year hey? As I write this, in mid January, the Omicron variant is raging here in Australia. Supply chain problems are resulting as key workers either get sick, or have to isolate. Every visit to the supermarket is an adventure – you don’t know what you are …continue reading.

Dear Readers. Shaun Lehmann, Katherine Firth (of the Research Voodoo blog) and I are currently in the process of writing a new book for Open University Press called ‘Writing Trouble’. ‘Writing Trouble’ will help you diagnose and treat your thesis writing problems. The proposed book evolved out of our work on the Thesis Bootcamp program, …continue reading.

Is academia too Fast? In 2011, I wrote a piece called Slow academia in which I mused: “If you think about it, a thesis or dissertation is the epitome of Slow. Even if you finish in speedy fashion you are unlikely to turn one out in less than three years. Over those years you have …continue reading.

I have worked exclusively with PhD students for over a decade now. I have clocked up the 10,000 hours Malcolm Gladwell says you need to be an expert, so I hereby declare myself an expert in the problems of research education. One sign that you can genuinely claim the title of ‘expert’ is when you …continue reading.

The best blog post topics come from emails like the one I got a couple of weeks ago, from an international student studying at an Australian university. Here is the student’s dilemma: The questions might be naive, but I do want to learn more about the “Australian” way of sending regards to supervisors. My supervisor invited …continue reading.

At a dinner party some time ago, an academic’s husband pointed out that there are many similarities between being an academic and running a small, not very profitable business. I laughed, but since I briefly ran a small business the comment struck a chord with me. After much thought, I think small business owners and …continue reading.

No matter who you are, when you start your PhD advice falls around you like fine rain. Despite the fact that I worked in research education already, lots of people felt free to give me advice when I started. I noticed that the advice ranged from the banal and obvious: “Don’t leave all your writing …continue reading.

Calvin Ho (@calvinhyj) is a PhD student in Sociology at the University of California, Los Angeles. He researches skilled labour immigration policies in Western countries. Through the Mellon Mays Undergraduate Fellowship program at UCLA, he also mentors minority students planning to pursue doctorates in the humanities and social sciences. Calvin is an avid blogger and …continue reading.