Choosing the Right Supervisor
One factor I underestimated when I started my PhD was supervision. I was thrilled about getting into a PhD programme, in Florence no less, and supervision seemed a matter of secondary importance. Oh, how wrong I was. The way I look at it now is that supervision is the single most important thing to get ‘right’ to have a positive PhD experience, and to set you up for further success down the line. A supervisor is a pivotal player, far more than a mentor or supervisor will have been during your earlier studies. It may be difficult to predict how [...]
Back to Basics: Relax to Achieve
Relaxation may be the missing link when it comes to your academic performance. I’m interested in this phenomenon: how we sometimes work against ourselves by trying too hard, pushing too much. By internalising a work culture that says working endless hours is the key to success. When everyone is working all the time, or at the very least seems to be working all the time, how to not worry you aren’t keeping up? We lean towards overwork to compensate and somehow make things better. But does it work? (Answer: no) Then how to undo this? What's the alternative? Sometimes the [...]
Your Best Shot at Staying in Academia: Tips from an Economist
I spent a good week in San Francisco earlier this year, travelling with my boyfriend who, with two colleagues, was to recruit some potential assistant professors for his department. My boyfriend is an economist. If you are not familiar with the academic job market in the economics field picture this: the job market is an actual physical market where demand and supply meet. In this case the venue was a suite in a swank hotel in the financial heart of San Francisco (picked by yours truly) where three young(ish) professors spent three long days interviewing job candidates. As was happening [...]
Going Offline: The Plan
Imagine yourself working without interruptions, without distraction, without being sucked into mind-numbing information overload. Imagine focus. Imagine creative thought and analysis happening. Now imagine such sustained focus happening for a couple of hours a day, at least five days a week. Imagine what that might mean in terms of output. Think chapters, articles, publications. Imagine what it (both the doing and the results) might mean in terms of satisfaction. Ah satisfaction! Interesting concept. The paradox of satisfaction: we have to give up more superficial satisfaction-seeking behaviour in order to be able to do or achieve those things that indeed satisfy. [...]
Freedom from the Internet
When I was writing my PhD the internet was my nemesis. It was the beginning of the blogging era then, and I spent so many hours reading posts and commenting and being distracted in general. Now, I’d say the worst offender is my phone! I’m not even sure what I’m doing on there. So. Freedom to the rescue. This is the app I used to go offline with when I was finishing my PhD. At one point I realised I wanted to get work done, and the surfing and daydreaming was making me a bit sick of myself. Nothing as [...]
The Lonely Academic
“Engagement predicts wellbeing above and beyond anything else.” A quote from one of Emma Seppälä’s recent articles on work cultures and wellbeing. She is the science director of the Stanford Compassion Center, and if you’re interested in the science of happiness I highly suggest you follow her. It doesn’t surprise me in the least and it supports what I have experienced myself, and what I now observe in others’ situations. Academia tends to be awfully bad when it comes to engagement. Truly, awfully bad. And I have come to the conclusion it’s one of the worst stressors for researchers, far [...]
LIBRARY
Free Resources Library
I have compiled some free resources for you to download. An e-book, a short course with encouraging emails to nudge your writing productivity alive, and a worksheet with a mini-course to create an effective and very zen work routine.
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