ow is the right time for a Research Student Association. I guess your first question is going to be: Why? Well, simply put: Money. A more complex answer revolves around the need for a student run organization that supports research students and has a budget to do so.

“But treating the thesis like a job didn’t minimise my anxiety very much, if at all. While I was going through these ‘job like’ motions at no time did doing the thesis really feel like a job – at least not a job as I understood it. For one thing I thought about my thesis all the time, even in my off hours – and the thinking made me either excited to get an idea on paper Right Now, or anxious. Sometimes it was hard to tell the difference between the two feelings, but towards the end the anxiety took over and didn’t lift until the day I got my examiner reports back.”

I’m tempted to help myself to a chocolate biscuit as I write this, but that would display a shameful lack of self-discipline. We all know, deep down, that not only does excessive chocolate make our clothes too tight, but self-discipline really is vital, whether it comes to avoiding excessive chocolate, or getting the thesis in on time. I managed the latter, so presumably I have hidden resources of self-discipline. If I could only remember where I left it!

How does a thesis look from the other side? This guest post is written by Dr Kristin Natalier, a qualitative researcher and senior lecturer in the School of Sociology and Social Work, University of Tasmania. If you catch her on a good day Kris will admit she actually quite likes working with research students on …continue reading.

Two weeks ago I started a collaborative google map so thesis writers could share their favourite places to work. I’m happy to report that this has been a roaring success with over 100 cafes marked on it – and more being added everyday. Thank you to everyone who contributed. I’m happy to know that if …continue reading.

“… during any given working week I have 4 physical places I use for PhD work and my part-time employment. For the PhD I have both a home study space and a space recently provided for me by my university, which you think would be ideal. I mean isn’t it good to have to have options? However, what I’ve found is it can also be somewhat confusing and disorienting. Questions like, what day is it? and, where am I going? frequently pop into my head. And not to mention the myriad of data storage questions it can generate!”

“We did particularly well in the third round when we had to identify international architecture, and as a table we chatted about the conferences that we had attended all over the world. But then things got harder and I realised that while I have focussed all of my attention on my PhD research topic the rest of the world has gone on without me.”

Is there any evidence to support the idea that the presence of senior professors and VC’s at university events is co-related with a higher quality of catering?

If you make and use scaffolds they can help you form different writing habits. Over time, the ways of thinking scaffolds encourage become habitual and words start to come out of your hands ‘pre-fabricated’ in a more academically legible way…

“This is the somewhat convoluted story of how I shaved over two years from my Ph.D, by choosing not to stay on the path I was on.”

Huh.”