This post was sent to me by Nevin, who prefers to remain partially anonymous. “If you work hard enough, you can achieve anything”. “If you put your mind to it, and stick with it, you can do it”. “Pain is temporary, quitting lasts forever”. “You cannot dig yourself out of a hole”. The clock in …continue reading.

Imagine my constant surprise, seven years later, at how much still remains unsaid about doing a thesis – even about the basics, such as how to get into a PhD program. Consider this letter which, eerily, happened to land in my inbox just as I was preparing my pitch for prospective students for ANU Open …continue reading.

This post is by Dr Anna McFarlane. Anna is a postdoctoral researcher on the Wellcome Trust-funded Science Fiction and the Medical Humanities project at the University of Glasgow. She is the co-editor of Vector: The Critical Journal of the British Science Fiction Association and Adam Roberts: Critical Essays (Gylphi, 2016). In this post Anna tackles …continue reading.

Normally, the Thesis Whisperer strives to be all things to all PhD students because I know there is a wide readership across all ages and stages – and all disciplines. However, if you forgive me, this post is an exception and speaks mostly to those studying in the humanities. Science, design and engineering students might …continue reading.

This post is by Ella o’sulllivan Last autumn I made a decision. I was getting out of academia. I wish I could say that I made this decision sitting in my book lined office overlooking the ivy clad university quad, but no, I made it sitting on my bed, with my laptop propped up on …continue reading.

While I was in Canada I got an email from Agnes who is finishing the writing part of her PhD. After some kind words about the blog she got down to business: “… I have a question to you that I could not find an answer to elsewhere. I am now writing up my PhD …continue reading.

Are you studying part time with a very full life? Yekemi is a part time doctorate (DBA) student in the Department of Marketing at Strathclyde Business School, Glasgow – and very busy person. She worked for General Electric and Schlumberger in senior marketing roles before embarking on her research in innovative outcomes in big data …continue reading.

Jonathan Downie is currently in the final stages of his PhD on client expectations of interpreters from Heriot-Watt University. Jonathan is a long time contributor to the Whisperer – his most popular piece was on parenting a toddler. This time Jonathan has some good words of advice for the PhD journey. You can read more …continue reading.

This post is by Nele Pollatschek (@NRPollatschek), a DPhil (=PhD) candidate at Oxford. A life-long sceptic, Nele’s working on evil and the problem of God’s justice in Victorian literature. In this post, she sounds like a yogi; but in her heart Nele’s a rebel rousing rockstar. Check out her blog, the oxforddphile. Four years ago, while I was writing a paper for my Master’s degree at Oxford, I came …continue reading.

This post is by Dr Catherine Ayers, who was a PhD candidate in the School of Sociology at the Australian National University, researching the multiple and sometimes conflicting ways we conceptualise and experience ‘Nature’, specifically in the realm of national parks and other protected areas. She has been known to nerd it up as an …continue reading.