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Day 5: What are you good at? Post-PhD employment

Round up This week we have looked at a range of skills and capabilities developed during a research degree, labelling them as Research Technique, Research Management, Communication and Professional Practice. Under these headings, we’ve unpacked what kinds of skills can be included and the language we can use to...

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Day 4: What are you good at? Post-PhD employment

Professional Practice The final column of the ANU Research Skills framework is labelled “Professional Practice”. This covers the skills and competencies that facilitate your work as a professional researcher – a leader in your area, rather than a student still learning from the professors. But this is not as...

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Day 3: What are you good at? Post-PhD employment

Communication One of the key strengths PhD graduates bring to their next job is high-level verbal and written communication skills. As my colleague Dr Claire Aitchison says, “HDRs don’t always realise that when they enrol in a research degree, they are signing up to become writers”. This might sound a little shocking...

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Day 2: What are you good at? Post-PhD employment

Research Management As we start to find more ways of naming the skills learnt during a research degree this week, the range of ‘management’ skills begins to appear (column 2 on the ANU framework you looked at yesterday). PhD graduates transitioning out of academia often go into roles that...

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Day 1: What are you good at? Post-PhD employment

Introduction Are you starting to think about what you’ve learnt during your research degree and what skills you have developed along the way? Are you getting ready to work out what you will do next? For some HDRs and ECRs, plans have changed considerably with the event of the...

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Day 5 Emotions and the PhD: Love

This is our last post for the Emotions and the PhD Pomodoro Break mini-course. I want to leave you with a sense of what can sustain you through the emotional rollercoaster of doctoral studies. LOVE There’s the passion you feel for your particular topic that we explored yesterday, and...

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Day 4 Emotions and the PhD: Boredom and Passion

Today we’ll look at boredom and passion. You can use both of these emotions to push your work forward and get where you want to be in your studies. BOREDOM When you start out on the PhD journey, it’s hard to imagine that you’ll encounter boredom along the path. But...

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Day 3 Emotions and the PhD: Fear and Curiosity

Today we think about fear and curiosity. Of course, fear can prevent progress, but it’s important to understand how curiosity can also become a stumbling block. Both can be managed, and we’ll look at strategies to help you do this. FEAR HDRs face a whole raft of fears during...

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Day 2 Emotions and the PhD: Frustration and Loneliness

These negative emotions might not sound like a fun focus for you today; we need to acknowledge them, but also consider ways of dealing with them. FRUSTRATION Frustration can appear in various forms during the PhD: research does not always run smoothly and the associated writing is also fraught...

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Day 1 Emotions and the PhD: Introduction and Confidence

Embarking on a PhD marks the beginning of a long journey that inevitably has a series of ups and downs. You are likely to experience a range of emotions that are both positive and negative; sometimes emotions that might feel negative can also act as a positive force. All...