PhD related links

Here are some (just what I have come across but there are many) articles that are published on the PhD experience. I will add as I come across new ones.

A new blog I have come across (they started following me on twitter): words in mOcean. Check out the blog about "battery PhD students".

Number one survival tool - the PhD Comics!!!

2016:

I am safely out of PhD world, but I still think it has had an impact on the type of person I am today. I wish that there was more support and understanding for PhD students and people after they finish. I struggled afterwards, I had no money, no job and LOTS of rejected applications. There was no one to advise me on what to do and my little UCT cocoon has gone. Maybe if there were things like this service at UCT - hell maybe there was but I didn't know about it. I think we should all just be more supportive of each other. (Also - please please please understand - a PhD is VERY different to undergrad and it is not all big parties and skipping lectures.)

June 2014:

So, I Googled "how to survive PhD blog" to see what the competition was like, and wow, there are a lot of people feeling the same things about PhDs. That might make you feel better or just make you wonder why you didn't Google it before you started so you could save yourself the torment and have found yourself a real job. 

I skimmed (I have a PhD to do after all) and some made me feel inexplicably annoyed and some resonated with my own experience (sometimes in the same article) and some has PhD comics in them which is always a good thing - OK, many of the blogs link or include PhD comics because you just can't help relating to PhD Comics, and knowing other people are as crazy as you are can help you cope! 

Before June 2014:

• How to stay sane during your PhD
• Light hearted relief. 
• Practical thesis advice - composition, structure, etc
• When it is time to write the "Dear John" letter to academia, use this link for inspiration (or at least to feel like you are not alone!)

• Studying a PhD: don't suffer in silence

Some quotes from the article:

"This is why it is important to have work and life structure, treating your PhD like a job with set working hours and targets on a short, medium and long term basis"

"Break down your work into manageable tasks rather than constantly feeling overwhelmed by the enormousness of your research."

"It is important to have honest and supportive relationships with other researchers to provide valuable encouragement and reality checking. Raise concerns and get support from your supervisor, your department or support services rather than wait until things get into a crisis." (I am very bad about this!)

• Em would be disappointed in me if I didn't link to "The Thesis Whisperer". And it even has a "what to do when your thesis is rejected by the examiners" (although I didn't find that that helpful)