In my job I have the privilege to work with some extraordinarily intelligent people. I mean – really clever. Intimidatingly clever. Clever to the point where I dare not open my mouth in some meetings for fear someone will discover I shouldn’t really be there. It’s not easy to live around all these clever clogs and be of average intelligence, so I have some coping strategies. These strategies have been developed by watching how clever people behave. The general principle here is: if I act like a clever person, I may become more clever – or at least I will appear to be more clever (which, existentially speaking, is the same thing).

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 “

“Do you think I should do a PhD?” It seems like I can’t go to a party without at least one person asking me this question – does this happen to you too? I probably shouldn’t be surprised; according to a recent government report the number of people undertaking a research degree in Australia has …continue reading.

The other day I was strolling back from a leisurely gossip session coffee with @ researchwhisper at Pearson and Murphy’s cafe when I ran into one of my favourite academics, let’s call him Ned. Why is Ned one of my favourites? Well, I know this sounds like a stupid reason, but Ned knows how to …continue reading.

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.

This post is from Dr Ali Daws and originally appeared on his most excellent blog, Writing on Writing. Ali is quite extraordinary, not the least for the fact that he is the only person I know to go and do a Masters degree AFTER he got his PhD ( just for interest – like you …continue reading.

This post is by our regular library correspondent, Dr Karen McAulay. In this post Karen asks: where and when do you do your best thinking? Are libraries the answer? Recently I read a blog post by Richard Watson, in which he reported that he had once asked a thousand people when and where they did …continue reading.

Do you ever have conversations with your partner like this?
(While relaxing over a nice meal and glass of wine)
Mr Krystle “Shouldn’t you be studying right now? How are you ever going to finish your PhD if you keep boozing up”
Krystle: “Arrrrrrrggggggghhhhhh!”
If the answer is yes, print this post out and put it on your fridge 🙂

Should you write papers while you are doing your PhD? Yes. Here’s some ways to include them in your thesis.