Category: Getting things done

This post is by Judy Redman who is a Uniting Church minister and, as part of her role as a university chaplain, has been minister of religion on the human research ethics committees of three different Australian universities. She has qualifications in Agricultural Science and Human Nutrition as well as Theology and is currently working …continue reading.

A little discussed aspect of PhD practice turns out to be… really quite interesting.

“I hated Derrida with a red-hot flaming passion of a thousand suns for ooh, about 2 weeks. Then something happened while I was crossing the road …”

This post is co-written with Pat Thomson, who is simultaneously publishing on her blog ‘Patter’. If you haven’t already, head on over there and check it out!

The Valley of Shit is that period of your PhD, however brief, when you lose perspective and therefore confidence and belief in yourself…

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…

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!

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

That first couple of weeks of study can be confusing. Without the structure of an undergraduate course and other classmates to guide you, simple things like finding the closest bathroom to your office can be challenging. Or you may find you don’t actually have an office at all! Roaming the halls and haunting the library with your book bag and a laptop is hardly conducive to settling in well.