Is work-life balance possible in academia? Or many other careers for that matter? What does work life balance actually look like? Do you even know if you have work life balance? These are big questions. Big questions that are difficult to answer. Big questions that are important because the answer could have consequences (both good and bad) upon our lives. […]
One of the things I have learnt since joining academia as a PhD student in 2016, is that there are clear and distinct seasons within academia. Just like we do in our everyday lives, we have to move through these seasons, and sometimes this can mean enduring long and cold winters. Other times it means flourishing in extended summers (think […]
**In Collaboration** All academics can relate to the fact that everyday tasks seem to just pass us by. When focusing on a project, be it a PhD, an academic paper, or planning a class, the chores of daily life seem to go unnoticed – or rather, wilfully ignored. If you can relate to this feeling, then read on to find […]
I am an Academic and a scientist, but I am also into fashion! So I wanted to share a week of my academic outfits. Day one: Skirt is from Seed Heritage Top is an oldie from Kmart (I have had it for 3 years and it still looks brand new!) Shoes are old faithful Converses Day two: Dress is a […]
Starting data analysis is hard and daunting- but for me it was also one of my favourite parts of the PhD process. I get excited by data, like to the point that when UberEats releases their yearly data wrap-up I get super excited, perhaps lame I know! Although, I am most definitely not a statistician I wanted to share my […]
As I am a teaching academic, teaching evaluations are an important part of my role. They contribute to my KPIs and allow me to determine how I am going with my teaching and what I can improve on. It can be incredibly daunting reading teaching evaluations as we don’t like to hear about things that we have done not so […]
During my final year of PhD, my honours student asked to meet to discuss her options for next year. She wanted to know more about what a PhD entails and I realised during this chat how much my opinion of a PhD as changed from first year to fourth year. We spoke about the positives of a PhD, such as […]
When you start a PhD, you are warned that a PhD is a marathon and not a sprint. But if we thought a PhD was a marathon, then academia is an Ultramarathon. Academia is the ultimate ‘quest for knowledge’ and there is always a next step, another publication, another grant, another conference, another step on the academic ladder. To succeed […]
I am currently a first-year PhD student and live in Dallas. Every day has a different work and life balance, but this is my typical working day… Hi! My name is Claire, a first-year neuroscience PhD student at UT Dallas. As a first year, I am trying to set up my research project. but basically, my project is focusing on […]
I started writing a blog post which was intended to be a list of my tips for achieving Work Life Balance as an Early Career Researcher/ Academic. When I started my list, I got to the first point, which was – Think about what Work Life Balance looks like for you and I realised that this is so important, it […]