Category: Miscellany

“We wondered: was the discomfort and inability to cope well with uncertainty a result of the kind of student being produced in undergraduate programs…” Prof Denise Cuthbert wonders about undergraduate baggage.

There is so much you can achieve with your life when all you do is work full time. I’d forgotten what it was like, not to feel guilty and scared all the time. Compared to a thesis, forty hours a week is a laughably small sum of hours to be spending on work.

Can I suggest that lessons can be learned from the Scottish traditions?

I don’t know about you but I create long lists of New Year’s resolutions and, inevitably, disappoint myself by not sticking at them very long. It certainly takes the fun out of the New Year’s party thing.

What would you like to see in your stocking on Christmas morning? Do you plan on buying or doing for yourself to celebrate all your hard work this year? I hope Santa is kind and grants your wishes – have a great Christmas everyone!

Anyway, it got me thinking (again) about the similarities between doing a PhD and taking part in a reality TV show. I have an unhealthy obsession with reality TV, which I have accepted as part of the brain damage I suffered while doing my PhD. While I’m selective about which ones I watch, I find the whole genre endlessly fascinating for the way it portrays learning as a process of self discovery and transformation. Bear with me here, I think I’m onto something and want to throw these ideas past you in the form of an academic mash up of my own before I go all academic and write a paper on it.

Interestingly, the word ‘whingeing’ is derived from the Old English ‘hwinan’ : “the sound of arrows whizzing through the air” and ‘hwinsian’: “to whine like a dog”. This derivation implies whingeing is a form of passive warfare, or social irritant, which is perhaps best ignored. However, when someone tells a trouble to another, the opposite is more likely to be true – telling troubles can bind us together. In fact, sites like PhD Comics or this blog wouldn’t be nearly as popular if they weren’t full of troubles talk!

This guest post is from Linda Kirkman  a PhD student in Health Science at La Trobe University, researching baby boomers in ‘friends with benefits relationships’. This post is partly the story of Linda’s experience of walking an ancient pilgrimage route and beautifully extends our recent  ‘why do a PhD? theme. A PhD is like a …continue reading.

“I told one of the mothers what I was studying for my PhD and she laughed in my face. Not kindly interested laughter either – out right derision. She paused after this and said “Why the hell would you bother doing that!” To add insult to injury, she went on to tell me she had a really difficult job – as a make up artist “

We Melbournians are privileged enough to get a public holiday for the Melbourne Cup. Your tireless editor took a couple of days off so this week’s Monday post is a little late, but I hope it’s worth the wait. This is a guest post from Rod Pitcher, a PhD student in Education at The Centre  …continue reading.