Category: Postgraduate Life
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Extra-curricular activities, or ‘doing things that aren’t the PhD’
During my first week as an undergraduate, we were all packed into a hall and spoken to by various people in various positions of authority. Most of what was discussed that day has long faded from my memory, whether through lack of necessity or as a consequence of my brain’s sieve-like tendencies, but one piece…
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Office space
Last year, while I was working in France, I had the privilege of having an office. This was the first time that I’d ever really had that kind of resource available to me, and I certainly didn’t hesitate to make full use of it. There’s something reassuring about having a space on campus that is…
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Responsible adult supervision
It’s been three weeks since the start of the PhD, and things are starting to come together. The disparate mental maps I have of different parts of town are starting to coalesce together into a coherent whole; I’ve found a pleasant spot in which to work (surely the subject of a future post!); and, perhaps…
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Inductions and introductions
At long last, the start of term has arrived, and with it has come the inevitable volley of meetings, talks and Q&A sessions that characterizes the start of any new academic enterprise. Thursday was ‘induction day’, when our ever-so-slightly-nervous cohort of new PGR (postgraduate research) students from all disciplines filed into the Alumni Auditorium to meet…
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An actual PhD update
Today’s post marks a new low for this blog: I’ve managed to craft something that’s (a) shorter than the usual fare, and (b) entirely unrelated to the topic that I promised to discuss last week, the term ‘Anglo-Norman’. This second topic is still forthcoming, but in the meantime I figured that it would be a…
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Academic Diaries: 2016-17
My own academic diary for the upcoming academic year is an old favourite: the Palgrave student planner, modelled in last week’s close-up shot. While in France I like to use a French planner – it just makes the whole living-in-France thing a little more authentic – but in the UK I struggle to resist the old…
Edward Mills 