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 […]
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 […]
A few weeks ago, I set up a question poll on Instagram and asked people to state their assumptions about me and/or my PhD journey…. “Your PhD journey feels like a duck on a pond. Calm to the eye, frantic below the surface” This is 100% true. I know that the person who wrote this also has a PhD, […]
You can actually get a lot done in a short period of time- Before I started working full time, I would be in my office for 9+ hours a day. Although in the last year or so I was definitely procrastinating less, I still found that I wasn’t being super productive. Now I get almost the same amount of work […]
I am working on establishing or rather finding if there is a correlation between development of lung cancer and age, smoking, dietary habits, other environmental factors. We are looking for SNPs which are present in the lung cancer patient and trying to link them with the above mentioned factors. For this we are using PCR technique to amplify our required SNP […]
It is a reasonably odd feeling, when something that took up so much of your life is over. A PhD creeps its way into every nook and cranny of your being. It crowds relationships, puts plans on hold, judges when you are watching TV, interrupts all conversations, creeps into dreams, and of course cements itself on your LinkedIn and other […]
I am by no means an expert at acquiring grants. I have a total of zero to my name. However, I do have a few tips for finding out about grants which you can apply for. Many people are aware of the large government grants (such as the Australian Research Council Grants, here in Aus), however finding smaller grants can […]
Many of us working within the field of academia have transitioned to online teaching (either partially or completely). As I am an online academic, even when social distancing is no longer implemented, I am sharing some of my online teaching tips. If you want to read my general tips for online teaching click here. Making content videos engaging and insightful […]