Tag: Postgraduate Research

The PhD student as political animal

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University of BristolRhiannon Easterbrook is a second-year PhD candidate in the Department of Classics and Ancient History. Having gained degrees from Cambridge and UCL, she took a few years out to work but is delighted to be back in academia. Her work is on classical reception in performance and performativity in Britain, 1895-1914. She is interested in how the Edwardians used ideas from the ancient world to think about embodiment, gender, and sexuality.

I read Not for Profit: Why Democracy Needs the Humanities by Martha Nussbaum back in 2011.  At the time, we were looking towards the increase in tuition fees to £9000 and the drastic cuts to teaching grants for arts and humanities degrees. While I didn’t agree with every word in the book, Nussbaum’s impassioned argument in defence of the humanities as a vital component in the education of democratic citizens inspired me.  It can come as no surprise that, as a Classics student, I have a long-held belief in the benefit of humanities degrees: as an undergrad, I was challenged to develop my analytical skills to be as rigorous as possible, exposed to different ways of experiencing and understanding the world, and driven to re-evaluate what it means to be human. As far as I can see, all three of these outcomes have a political implication: how do we process the information about policies and politicians presented to us? In a heterogeneous group, what kinds of differing perspectives must we accommodate? If we are entitled to certain rights based on being members of humanity, then what does that say about being human and who gets to decide? It was unquestionable to me that studying a humanities degree was not just personal choice but a deeply political one.

But, if studying for a humanities degree is a political choice, then why have I spent so much of my PhD so far feeling like I was failing as a political animal? When climate change is an ever-present threat, conflict rages across the world and hundreds of thousands of people are using food banks in this country, studying for an advanced research degree about some classical-ish plays put on a century ago can feel at times like an indulgence and that I should somehow be going out and helping change the world.  Plus, having to juggle so many different commitments in order to stay afloat and work towards my intended career requires a great deal of attention.  (I’m aware I’ve complained about this on the blog before).  Staying focused on research and worrying about income are not necessarily conducive to staying politically active and tuned in. It also doesn’t help that the classic imposter syndrome – the plague of so many PhD students – has come along and infected this part of my life too, leaving me feeling that there is always someone else better qualified and informed to talk about the issues of the day.

Yet at the same time, I have been much more conscious of how my work as a scholar reflects my political and social interests.  Feminism has been extremely important to me since my teens. In the last few years, I have begun the process of reassessing my stance on several issues and have developed an interest in intersectional feminism. This has led to the conscious incorporation of intersectional feminist analysis in my research.  Now this has come full circle and I am ploughing what I learned in theory back into practice.  Along with a group of excellent colleagues, I am working towards establishing a society for women Classicists. An awareness of intersecting oppressions has meant that we advocated establishing positions on the committee for other minorities: people who experience oppression as women, whether they’re disabled, LGBTQIA or BME, all deserve attention paid to their specific experiences and we all need to develop our understanding of where we may be a bit more privileged.

While this only a small step in a society which is riven with so many inequalities, I hope that I can begin to do my bit. Part of this is about reaching out and keeping discussions going.  I am honoured to know so many thoughtful, insightful people – including a considerable number of brilliant women who offer mutual support and advice – people whom I would never have met had I not started my PhD.  Whether I’m marching with them at Reclaim the Night or chatting about our theses in the pub, this community inspires me to be a better person and a better researcher.

As the future of the Human Rights Act looks uncertain questions of what it means to be human may gain more attention. But as I think again about the humanities and their role in this discussion, it is now clear to me that it’s not just why we do the humanities that’s important, it’s how we do them. It’s about re-evaluating our own subject-positions and how they influence our research, remembering that there is no neutral position. It’s about the voices we privilege and the voices we sideline. How often is it acceptable to have all-male panels, for example? Do we make our work and teaching accessible? We all have to live and right now, I have chosen to live as a researcher.  However, that does not mean that I’m isolated from what happens outside the Graduate School.  I’m beginning to see more and more how, while academia might feel like part of a strange bubble, it’s really part of a much wider community, capable of reproducing social problems and able to speak in dialogue with different parts of society, like any other sector. It could well be that very few people will ever read my thesis but I know that I can take what I learned me as I go through the world.

A PhD student guide to Twitter

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Sarah_JoseSarah Jose is third-year postgraduate researcher in plant science. Her research focuses on how plants limit water loss by producing a waterproof coating and pores that can close to prevent water from leaving the leaf. She spends a lot of time looking down the microscope at nail varnish impressions of leaves!

Think Twitter is for keeping up to date with the latest from Taylor Swift and One Direction? Think again! Twitter can be a quality tool for networking, keeping up to date with the latest news in your academic field and more! Read on to see how you can use Twitter to your advantage.

Twitter feed
Use Twitter to keep up to date and get involved in your research community.

Getting started

I’m going to assume a basic understanding of Twitter here, so if you need an introduction to the topic then check out Twitter’s guide for beginners.

To make the most of Twitter as a PhD student, you’ll need to set up a reasonably professional account. The odd tweet about your cat is fine, but if the majority of your tweets are about your life as a #belieber or how many pints you can drink before you fall into the Floating Harbour then consider creating a new account. Check out this guide for more information.

Why should PhD students use Twitter?

By selecting who you follow, you create a personalised news feed that you can access whenever you like. Don’t feel intimidated if your feed contains more information than you can ever get round to reading. The most important news will be retweeted or reposted several times, and by checking out the main hashtags for your field (e.g. #plantsci for plant biology!) you can keep up to date with the latest trends in just a few minutes a day.

How do you find the most interesting people to follow? Try adding researchers you met at conferences or those whose work overlaps with your own. For publication news, follow some of the important journals in your field, or some of the major organisations, for example if you’re a scientist you might follow the Royal Society (@royalsociety). If you’re just starting out, look at who your colleagues or collaborators are following and choose some of those accounts. I use Twitter as my main source of science news, and it takes far less time than trawling through news sites, blogs and the journal news sites. You will likely also come across funding opportunities that you could apply for to travel to conferences or organise an event.

One of the great things about Twitter is the sense of community. When you start to get involved in online discussions, you’ll realise that even the biggest names in your field are just real people – almost everyone is happy to talk to PhD students and share advice. Just make sure you’re using your community’s hashtag so that others are more likely to see your tweets!

Getting involved in the community can also be great for your career. You’re getting your name out there, and can promote your own research and any publications you might have. There’s some debate about whether or not Twitter mentions can influence the number of citations your paper will receive, but any potential extra exposure can’t be a bad thing. Catching the eye of a potential new employer can’t hurt either!

Top tips for Twitter

You’ve got 140 characters to play with in a tweet. Images take up 23 characters, but are worth including where available as they increase your tweet’s visibility and almost double the likelihood of it being retweeted.

Make sure you keep your content balanced; tweeting about your own work is great, but promoting others is just as valuable and will get you noticed. Be aware, though, that an account full of retweets and no original content will not attract many followers as it looks like you have no interesting ideas of your own.

Don’t just follow thousands of people in the hope of getting reciprocal followers. Those who do this will not be interested in your content, plus your news feed will be overflowing with more information than you could ever hope to read.

What to tweet about?

Need some ideas for tweets? How about:

  • Your work. Got any interesting research methods or findings, publications etc.? You could even link to a poster you made or a presentation you’ve given and uploaded to SlideShare, assuming you have your supervisor’s consent!
  • You could tweet a day in your life using the hashtag #brisphdlife.
  • Publicise an event or article that’s caught your attention, with a comment about why it appeals to you personally. Make sure you use hashtags and @ mentions so that more people will see it!
  • Ask a question. If it’s about PhD life, try #phdchat. If you have a question about a particular paper, find out if the author is on Twitter and then ask them directly. It’ll make you stand out and they’ll appreciate the chance to talk about their work.

Twitter photo

A note about live tweeting conferences: There has been a lot of debate online about whether or not people should live tweet at conferences. My advice is that tweeting the title of the talk, general comments about the field and previously published results are fine, but DO NOT tweet results that are unpublished. Read this great post for more information.

Don’t overdo the live tweeting anyway. Followers who aren’t interested in the conference will probably unfollow you rather than scrolling through 50 posts about the minutiae of the event.

Nature article on why academics use Twitter
Why do academics use Twitter? A Nature survey of 330 academics with Twitter accounts revealed that following discussions, promoting content and discovering peers were some of the most common reasons. http://www.nature.com/news/online-collaboration-scientists-and-the-social-network-1.15711

Want to know more?

Check out the following articles for more information:

Making Sense of Science

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Madeline_BurkeMadeline Burke is a third-year postgraduate researcher in the department of Cellular and Molecular Medicine.  Madeline did her undergraduate degree in Mechanical Engineering before switching disciplines when she started a PhD with the Bristol Centre for Functional Nanomaterials (BCFN). She is currently building a 3D bio-printer that can create human tissue by printing stem cells. Madeline’s research is interdisciplinary, using concepts from chemistry, cell biology and engineering, to design matrices for stem cells that not only support the cells, but cause them to grow into desired tissue such as cartilage. Most of her time is spent in the lab, designing new experiments and building her 3D printer.

As a PhD student I’m always worrying. I worry that I’m not doing enough work, that I should be getting in earlier, that I should be working “smarter”, that my experiments aren’t working, that I must be doing something wrong because they should be working by now…you get the point.

Sometime during my first year I thought to myself ‘there must be other researchers out there who are worrying about the same things that I do’. Like all good researchers who don’t know the answer to a question I turned to Google to see if I was right, if there were other students out there who were worrying as much as I was about everything PhD related. Much to my relief I came across a whole host of blogs dedicated to people that felt exactly the same as I did! PhD students who weren’t sure research was for them, students who loved researching but had an unshakeable feeling that they weren’t good enough, students who were questioning why they were doing a PhD.

It was an amazing feeling – I wasn’t alone! Other people were having the same problems as me, but even better, they had advice for how to deal with these problems. I found one blog dedicated to writing a thesis in three months, I found another on how to deal with a difficult supervisor (not that my supervisor is difficult I would like to point out!) and another on finding jobs outside research after your PhD has ended. I found more blogs then I could mention, written by struggling PhD students on their experiences in research and academia. These blogs all helped me to make more sense of my PhD. I could relate to what other people wrote and look up ways of coping with PhD stress and expectation. I started to realise that sometimes I enjoyed reading these blogs more than I enjoyed my PhD, but still I did nothing about these feelings – I just got on with my research while moaning to everyone around me who would listen.

After going through a particularly bad spell of results a few weeks ago and really questioning whether this was what I wanted to do with my life, a friend approached me and told me about a media course run by Sense about Science, a London based charity whose aim is to equip people to make sense of science and evidence. I have been on a few media courses before, including one very enjoyable course run by Imperial, but this was different.

We got to quiz a panel made up of both researchers and journalists on their experiences with science and the media, including (to name a few) an assistant news editor at Nature, an Infectious Disease Epidemiologist in the World Health Organisation and a freelance journalist who writes about the science behind the beauty industry. We were told not to be afraid of the media when it comes to our research – by doing a PhD we will automatically know more than most people about our fields and we shouldn’t be afraid of using the media to promote our research. A valid point. I, for one, would worry that my opinion was not ‘expert’ enough. The panel also advised having three points and sticking to them – even if that’s not what they have asked you – a good point for any form of communication, really. I left wondering if that would work in a viva!

The journalists shared how they put a story together, including what they would need from scientists. For example, they need someone who would be readily available to give a quote and that the quote would be easy to understand. Finally, the day was rounded off with a Research Media Officer giving us some tips on how to get involved in science communication. One of the common themes of the day was to get involved and make your voice heard. We were told unequivocally to join Twitter and another piece of advice I really took to heart was to start a blog. I had toyed with the idea before but the Voice of Young Science media workshop really gave me the push I needed to get started.

The internet is such a powerful tool, so use it! How can you get your voice heard? How can you motivate yourself when you research just isn’t working? What if academia just isn’t for you? There are loads of websites out there answering these questions, just start Googling.

On Mourning the PhD

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Yiota

Yiota Demetriou is completing a PhD in the Department of Drama researching performative approaches of staging oral history archives and employing media such as sound art, live art, video, photography  and installation. Her work facilitates a cross-fertilization between the fields of  oral history, performance, philosophy, interaction design, sound art, sound engineering, memory studies, museum, curatorial and archival studies. 

I’m on Chapter Five – Conclusions and Findings, and I’m staring intently at the computer screen reluctant to type a word.  I realise that finishing this means it is over…What are my conclusions?! What are my findings?! Instead of finishing the chapter, I get distracted with writing this… I’m tearful over my PhD and I have yet to submit it!

I was warned about this from more experienced colleagues. Apparently, it is like overcoming a long and intense relationship before it’s actually over…it may also seem like giving birth and giving the child away…obviously it is not the same, but my project is my baby, my ideas are a part of me, they were nourished inside of me… Does any of this make any sense? Is this why I keep distracting myself, or keep going over and over it, because something, somewhere inside of me doesn’t want it to finish? In a way I’m delaying the process, my project is done and although it is ready to move on, I on the other hand may not be on the same page. I suppose the question to ask is: am I really not ready to move on?! Perhaps I’m scared, as I am used to being part of a rigorous educational framework that makes it difficult for me to step foot in the outside world, that isn’t academia.

Obviously, it’s not over yet – I still have a final push (or several), the viva, the corrections…I’m sure there will be a few. Some days I feel exhausted, other days, I find myself in shock, how could I have possibly come up with all these words – words that actually mean something. I’ve enjoyed my PhD journey, the best years of my life. I have met like-minded people, I’ve been to places, mingled with renowned academics and learnt things that I wouldn’t have imagined learning otherwise.

I do feel tired though. Self-funding a full-time PhD is not an easy process, as you have to constantly self-discipline, four or even five times more than a fully-funded PhD for time management.  This of course depends on the person, and it is heightened if you are like myself, fully involved in a range of projects simultaneously (outside the PhD); self-discipline and time management are crucial qualities. However, these are valuable skills definitely worth developing and attaining for any context.

I certainly won’t miss the state of confusion when entering the outside world that follows consecutive days of being locked-in studying and writing. Nevertheless, I’m not the only one, and it is good to meet with other people in the same boat, even if they are not from the same field and support each other, through the process. Most importantly, it is inspiring to see female academics and other fellow PhDers, who are further into the PhD journey, studying for their doctorate alongside being in full-time employment and with children.

Our supervisors, along with the whole department, and our PGR Theatre group, have been supportive all the way. And even though I need to catch a breath and I’m due to embark on an additional journey of stress and anxiety about what I am going to do next with my life, in general, the exhaustion was worth it! I worked hard, in a few jobs, to fund myself through it; I did this for myself so I have no complaints or regrets, I enjoyed every minute of it and I thank those who have helped me through it.

Hopefully this will not form part of my acknowledgments in the actual thesis, but I appreciate all the help that has been given to me: From my friend that gave me a place to stay when I arrived to Bristol as a stranger, on the 5th Dec 2011; to the middle-aged guy who gave me a temporary job at the kebab shop until I got on my feet; my supervisor that took care of my sanity and kept pushing me to expand my ideas as well as keeping me from distracting myself, (which I am doing now, I’m sorry Paul); to the head of our department who has been supporting us all the way; to the amazing PGRT community and friends (most of whom have moved on now) that welcomed and gave me an insight into how things work; and to friends and family who have dealt with my frequent work-related mood swings and tantrums. Bear with me a little longer, I have a final submission date, I’m nearly there!

Representing the misrepresented

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Wingrove_1Louise Wingrove is a third-year postgraduate researcher in the department of Drama: Theatre, Film and Television. Her research is focused on how the lives of working women were represented by serio-comediennes on the Victorian music-hall stage, using the characters and careers of Jenny Hill (1848-1896) and Bessie Bellwood (1856-1896) as case studies.  Most of her research is archive based, piecing together long lost careers, songs and venues through files of reviews, photographs and sheet music.

This is Louise’s third entry for the ‘Year in the Life of a PhD’ blog. Her first entry, entitled ‘Belonging in archives’, discussed the challenges of finding your niche as a researcher and the joy of learning new skills, and Louise reflects on her experiences and what lies ahead in her second post ‘New Year’s revelations’.

Entering my write up stage, I am strangely surprised to find that the clichéd phrase “the time will fly by” uttered to me so many times at the start of my PhD is completely true.  It has been a whirlwind of nineteenth century studies, learning curves and more personal realisations than I can count and I have loved it more than I ever imagined.  Now, having felt and acknowledged the imposter syndrome and panic attacks, it is a preoccupation with preconceptions, clichés and misrepresentation that is currently plaguing me.

I am a Chihuahua owning, dyspraxic, ex-bibliophobic PhD student with an almost unhealthy sitcom and RuPaul’s Drag Race obsession.  Each of these things in isolation are pre-loaded with assumptions and clichés about my personality, whether representative or not.  Even my choice of Music Hall comediennes as a topic for research comes with many preconceptions – something I am sure we all find when trying to explain the nuances of our study to someone else.

My clichéd preoccupations initially began after realising that I had had the following conversation to the point of it becoming a cliché:

Lovely person who doesn’t realise the can of worms they are opening:  “So, how many words do you have to write for a PhD?  Really?  How can you write that much?”

Me:  *not at all trying to be smug, but maybe with a little too much pride*  “Well, it’s more like how can I possibly fit in all I have to say – I have too much material and not enough room!”

I heard people answer in the same way before I started my PhD, and I have fallen into the cliché myself.  What I don’t say, however, is that at each stage I too have wondered how I would make the word count.  By studying performers whose huge popularity is now largely forgotten, I (secretly) worried that I would be lucky to scrape enough material together.  Then I learnt more about their careers, their personal lives, the importance of placing their work within a social historical context and the separating of truth from urban myth, and I soon discovered there was a lot to cover.  This resulted in my choosing only two performers to research.  This again filled me with a “not enough material” panic until I went even deeper and found myself surrounded by so many different spreadsheets and case studies that were “vital” that I couldn’t possibly cut it down without major tantrums.

During this, I found the truth in another piece of advice given to the point of it becoming a cliché –the importance of your relationship with your supervisor. I have always said I have been exceptionally lucky to have such an amazing supervisor, but it was at this point I really began to understand the importance of this relationship.  Her ability to both calm and offer constructive suggestions of ways to order and present the wealth of research obtained in an archival approach has been integral to getting me through my study.  My research content continually shifts, affecting the usefulness of different ways of presenting the data.  However, each way we discuss has made it clearer to me whilst allowing me to follow my instinct and calmly continue on to my next hurdle.  This stable relationship has even enabled me to send work off to be looked at without the crippling fear that I will get an email back simply saying “Why?” and “Give up!”

But it is now that I am facing my biggest cliché, preconception and misrepresentation hurdle of all – how to represent Jenny Hill and Bessie Bellwood.  On a simple level, I am myth busting; showing how preconceptions surrounding these comediennes careers and materials are flawed.  It’s about showing how performers engaged and reflected a variety of social issues and me challenging assumptions surrounding the working methods of these women and what they wished to represent to an audience.  On a more complex level – I have fallen in love with Hill and Bellwood!  I feel like I know them exceptionally well, making me overprotective of them.  This makes me want to include every tiny thing I know about them and cut nothing so as to build a full picture, highlighting their good and explaining any ‘questionable behaviour’ as I don’t want people to form assumptions about them.  I wouldn’t only want to be remembered and represented by one aspect of my life, which could skew understanding of my complexities as a person.  I’m not only a Chihuahua owner!  I must remain objective, documenting their career development and material and, ironically, the ways in which their reputations were possibly misrepresented by the press to keep them within social ideals and constructs.  To represent them properly, I must learn to distance myself as I am building a picture of them based on archive materials, not on my first hand knowledge of them as living people.

So now, I must face up to the biggest drama cliché of all and “cut my baby,” represent them as best I can and stay thankful to all the support around me.  And possibly buy shares in Rescue Remedy for all the tantrums!

Getting to grips with your subject…

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tessa profile v3Tessa Coombes is a first year postgraduate researcher in the School for Policy Studies. After recently completing the MSc in Public Policy at the University of Bristol, she decided to stay on and continue her research interest in politics, policy process and housing. Her research is focused on how housing policy is treated at a time of political change. Using the Bristol Mayoral Election 2016 as the basis of her study she will look at agenda setting, influence and policy change in Bristol.

I’ve just about reached the half-year mark in my PhD, that is, I started my PhD just six months ago. It seems like longer but also like no time at all. Over the last month or so I’ve been putting together a PhD plan to identify what I need to do, and when, over the next three years. This is just an initial sketch and broad outline, but is a guide to setting more detailed objectives, something I have now done for the next six months. The thing that struck me most is that three years isn’t very long. When you begin to break it down into small chunks of work to be done before you start the fieldwork, the first 12 months vanish very quickly under a myriad of literature, methods, organising and planning.

One of the things I realised very quickly when drawing up my plan, is that I don’t really quite know what my research is about. Well, I know the broad area I’m interested in and I know what I want to study. But I’ve a long way to go before I am fully cognisant with the existing literature in my field and before I fully appreciate the complexities of specific methods of research. I’ve started that process of understanding but have so much more to learn. Indeed, I spent much of the first six months studying research methods through taught courses and assignments. About five months too long in my view, but a necessary evil and a key part of any PhD programme.

I have now begun the topic-based literature search process in earnest. I’m trying to use some of the things I learnt during my research methods training to ensure I undertake a somewhat more systematic approach than I would normally adopt. I’ve set out key search terms, established where I’ll search for information, decided on exclusion and inclusion criteria and I’ve set up a comprehensive system for logging all the information I collect throughout the months of searching and reading. That’s far more organised than I’ve ever been in the past when it comes to seeking out literature.

Now I’m a month or so into the process I am beginning to feel slightly overwhelmed – not just by the amount of literature that I need to consume but also by the complexity and language used in some of it. Once more it leaves me feeling a little stupid and frequently bemused. I find myself asking the following question regularly:  “why am I doing a PhD, what on earth made me think I was clever enough to try?” Maybe this relates to the “imposter” syndrome others have mentioned in their blogs and I guess most researchers will ask themselves that question, or something similar, throughout their research. It could be seen as a negative thought process but for me it’s a useful prompt, that pushes me harder to prove a point, that yes I can do this but it’s going to be tough.

So, what am I actually doing and what is my PhD about? I feel like I am getting closer to the answer to that and I feel a little more comfortable that I have a topic worth researching, that might even be of interest to someone other than me. Over the last month or so I’ve tried out a few different versions of my response to this question in order to see which works best and how people respond. I’ve come up with a variety of short answers, depending on who is asking. For now, I’ll say my PhD is about agenda-setting, power and influence, using the Bristol Mayoral election in 2016 as a case study. I’m doing an ethnographic study, which seeks to provide a better understanding of the tactics used by different actors to move housing issues up (and down) the political agenda. I am interested in how actors at the centre of the action perceive and respond to influence and lobbying and how the newly elected mayor will decide on policy priorities and change. I’m hoping it will be of interest to scholars of the policy process, to those with an interest in political change and will also help practitioners to understand how power and influence works at a local level.

That’s what I’ll be spending the next 3 years learning all about and I’m both excited and daunted by the prospect. A PhD is an individual learning process and one where I am in the driving seat. It’s totally different to what I have been doing for the last 20 years in work so it’s challenging, which is part of what makes it worth doing. But above all, it’s interesting, as my PhD brings together, in one study, many of the things that I find fascinating: housing, policy, politics, and Bristol.

Learning to Teach

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University of BristolRebecca Ingle is a second year PhD student in the Bristol Laser Group in the School of Chemistry. Her research involves studying photodissociation dynamics in both the gas and solution phase using a combination of laser experiments and computational chemistry methods.

At its heart, a PhD might seem quite a simple thing. Bumble around in a lab for a few years, try to find conferences in the most exotic corners of the Earth, write a few things down. However, as well as the exciting cutting edge research, there are a whole host of other opportunities to challenge yourself with, including trying your hand at teaching.

Some people might consider teaching a waste of time; after all, you won’t have much of a PhD if you don’t have a tome of research to submit at the end. However, it can be an excellent way of developing your confidence, learning about some new subject areas and picking up some so-called ‘employability-skills’ if you are ever planning on leaving the realm of perpetual studenthood. You might even find teaching motivates and helps with your research work, rather than detracting from it.

If you’re looking back on your first year undergraduate studies with a warm sense of nostalgia, longing for the days when you thought you knew everything, then perhaps teaching is also for you. But how do you go about getting involved and more importantly, how do you start becoming an effective teacher?

Choose your Audience

There are a huge number of opportunities available for teaching, both in and outside of the university. Maybe herding groups of undergraduates and their chemicals back to the fume hoods, where they belong, sounds like the challenge for you or maybe you’d rather try to instil a love of maths in the younger generation. Regardless of what size groups or subjects you want to teach, you can probably find something to suit.

If you fancy venturing outside of the university, the market for GCSE and A Level tutors is huge. It is even possible to teach online now. However, it is worth doing your homework if you are planning on tutoring through an agency to ensure that they are reputable and exactly what cut of your earnings they take. Although perhaps less lucrative, schools are often keen to get support with after-school science clubs or additional support for students.

Most departmental opportunities are advertised by email but it can be worth keeping an eye on opportunities on a university level as well as via Widening Participation and the Careers Service.

Be Prepared

It may seem obvious, but the better you know the material yourself, the better you will be able to deliver it. The more thorough your understanding, the easier it will be to come up with alternative explanations to try and make sure all your students understand the material. If you have a feeling for what students typically find difficult on a course, it can be worth preparing extra questions or examples to give them more opportunity to practice and feel more confident.

However, no matter how hard you’ve studied the subject, some enthusiastic student will come up with a question you had no way of anticipating. Cue desperately trying to remember what you definitely knew four years ago to avoid shattering the naïve illusions of undergraduates that think you are the font of all knowledge. On the plus side, getting used to thinking on your feet in these situations makes question time at conference talks seem like a breeze.

If avoiding working with projectors and computers is impossible, turn up to the room three hours early, preferably with someone from IT in tow. The closer it is to the start of the lesson, the greater the likelihood that the computer will refuse to log on, decide that .ppt is an unknown file extension and delete all your files.

Seek Help

If you are completely new to teaching and have no idea how to cultivate the aura of calm and knowledge that your lecturers seemed to manage so easily, there is a lot of help out there. The University runs several ‘Starting to Teach’ courses specifically to address this problem and course organisers are normally only too happy to help, as if you fail to answer the students’ questions, they’ll only get asked them later.

Course organisers and other PhDs typically know what the most common issues and problems are likely to be or if you’re helping with practical sessions, ten different ways to switch the equipment off and on again to get it to work. Your supervisor might have some sagely tricks of the trade to share as well.

It can be nervewracking standing up in front of a class, hoping that after an hour, the whiteboard of algebra will suddenly make sense to everyone but it can be immensely rewarding seeing students making excellent progress. Being a researcher means you can often give a unique perspective of where a lot of theories are actually used and bring some seemingly useless topics to life. Sometimes the answer will be ‘I don’t know’ but you might find yourself learning as much as your students do.

Lost, Doom, Eureka – Three random Thursdays

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University of BristolDominika Bijoś is a final year postgraduate researcher from the School of Clinical Sciences, based in the School of Physiology and Pharmacology. She studies smooth muscle contraction and examines how other cell types influence it in bladder tissue and in the whole organ. Initially, she used molecular and cell biology techniques, but spent last year watching and analysing moving bladders and the conclusion was – they dance the samba!

“What to do?!”, “nothing works” and “success!” is the range of my experiences of a PhD – any of this sounds familiar? I dare not quantify how often each of those days happens…

Lost – The day I don’t know what to do

It is a grey rainy day. I feel lost in the overwhelming amount of things I need to do. Prioritizing is never between more and less important stuff – it is between important and deadline important. I can’t do everything in a limited amount of time, but right now I am paralysed with inability to decide what I should devote my precious limited time to. Have a cup of tea with a friend, breathe. Say it out loud.

Once a decision is made, it is easier – I can at least focus on one action. I will first write the review draft, send it to my boss, with this done I will analyse the data and show it to him at the next meeting (no surprise here, bosses love data) and then prepare everything for tomorrows’ experiment.

That’s the plan. Cup of tea gets me going.

Doom – The day nothing works

In science experiments fail every day…. next thing you know you spent the first year of your PhD building a tool, optimizing a protocol, troubleshooting… You start a day: prepare, try, try, try, fail, try more, fail and go home… no wait, boss has another idea to try. Try, fail. Home finally.

I need a Mary Berry cake to cheer my up. Bakeoff on TV will do.

The difficult part isn’t in the fact that it didn’t work, not even in preparing and doing the experiment everyday as if you were about to discover something new. The difficult part is not letting it get to you and keep going.

Eureka! – The day we discover something new

Spring has come, so did the visiting specialists from Japan. In between going about the usual business, the group is doing EXTRA experiments with the Japanese visitors. Guess what? They don’t work. The equipment picks up only noise, tools break, fire alarm goes off and we need to start again, and everything that can go wrong… does.

Thursday, 9 am – prepare, 10 am – visiting scientists start, noon – Louise takes over, she works to make it work… It does at 6 pm. Next, the magic happened: an amazing recording of nerve activity! A activates B – that has never been shown before!

If A activates B and the communication is supposed to be both ways… why not check if B really activates A?  It is 7 pm and it is a crazy idea. The Experiment started 10h ago, but it WORKS NOW. It takes so much hard work, no one wants to stop! Japanese visitors share their instant miso soup with us. Delish. Note to self: buy some as back up food.

Did I mention the boss is in the lab? It is not a lost PhD moonlighting and struggling in isolation, no. Today is the day when the whole team works together. Everyone is tired, the lab could do with better ventilation, but there aren’t normally 5 people working there… This week is different.

At 9 pm the we see that B activates A. Wow.

This was the day when science worked, the day when we discovered something new and I saw it happen.

I love it. I love science.

On Friday we celebrated in the pub. Boss paid all rounds.

Thursdays123Friday
Thursday 1, Thursday 2, Thursday 3 and Friday!

P.S. With this post I thank everyone I worked and drank tea and celebratory drinks with!

Ten thousand papers a month

Posted on by Doctoral College

Nick-JonesNick Jones is a second-year postgraduate researcher in the School of Mathematics. His research is rooted in physics and the problem of understanding how a large number of interacting particles behave. Particularly interesting is the case where the emerging cooperative behaviour of the whole system is very different to that of the smaller pieces that make it up.

Most of the days that I spend working on my PhD, I am at my desk (which, incidentally, has a pretty great view over Clifton). There, I’m usually confronted by a web browser with so many tabs open that you can’t read the names. Most of them have the same icon though: the ‘smily face and crossbones’ of arXiv.org – a website where many researchers post preprints of their articles, as well as lecture notes and other such useful things. One thing you realise during your studies is just how much information is out there, and what a challenge it is to find the thing you need: at the end of last year arXiv passed one million new papers since its 1991 inception. Initially, the papers were in one sub-field of physics and there would be about one hundred papers added per month. Since then it has grown to cover physics, mathematics and computer science as well as quantitative subfields of other sciences, with almost ten thousand new papers each month! It is a fantastic resource; with many scientists making their work available for everyone to read, including those readers who don’t have the journal subscriptions that I get through the Bristol library. Other fields have similar preprint servers, and not every physics paper appears on arXiv, but some idea of the quantity of new work can be gained from the graph below. newsubsMost of the growth you see is in adoption of arXiv by a subfield, but note that hep-* (the high energy physics category) has had a relatively constant submission rate for the past few years, so the number you see is probably about the size of the active field. This works out at about twenty five papers per day, so a lot to keep track of!

With so much research being done it can be difficult to stay on top the field your project sits in. One way is to meet people at workshops and conferences (and stay in touch – they might write to you with something interesting!), but if you are at the office you will need to keep track of articles on the internet. If the field is moving quickly, you will have to keep an eye on the preprints in case something you need appears and to make sure you don’t end up doing research that would have been new at the start of the year but has now been done somewhere else. Equally, if there is less activity in your field, it’s easy to stop looking for new publications and then you are guaranteed to miss developments. And of course, these are just the new papers, you also need to know what is already out there! Thankfully, the internet makes life easier, but sometimes a bit of luck helps too. In an effort to make sure I didn’t miss anything new I signed up for the ‘scientific recommendation engine’ Sparrho. You put in keywords that you are interested in and then it will check all kinds of websites (including, of course, the arXiv!) for articles. You then tune it by choosing which of these you consider relevant. After putting in three words that I thought most appropriate for my research project and playing around for five minutes it came up with a paper from 2013 that is exactly what I needed and which I could easily have never found! Since then I have been using it to keep tabs on new papers in my field, although I haven’t had another such breakthrough from (recent) history.