Posted on by mamothena

No matter your PhD needs, PhD Twitter has you covered…

In keeping with the spirit of being a millennial…I’m going talk about PhD Twitter and how great it is 🙂 . Before I did my PhD I hated Twitter. I found it too random, for lack of a better word. And not even lists and carefully curated content made a difference. I would login once and forget to come back for another six months. Until I started my PhD…

It started off with following the organizations I like, and then I got into PhD Twitter hashtags. #PhDchat #PhDlife #PhDadvice, #PhD… you name it. The information was still random, but now I felt connected to it. I was entertained, encouraged, and sometimes even enlightened. You cannot go 2 tweets without something that brings an emotional response out of you. And that’s why the platform is so addictive. Follow with care!

PhD Twitter can encourage you just as much as it can freak you out. Often people share horror stories of their experiences, or their disillusion with the PhD and academia…and you will wonder why you logged in. Here are some of my favourite (and not so favourite) things to engage with on PhD Twitter:

  1. Practical advice

This is a checklist on dealing with supervision. The best part for me is the comment from the PhD student, who balances this neat checklist with a little dose of reality. Some advice out there will miss the nuances of your situation, or your motivations at the time. As one of the responses state, sometimes your desperation to get into a program makes it hard to make sure your supervisor and project meet some criteria.

When you feel you can do the research and the supervisor seems nice enough, you do it.  We settle for the acceptance letter, and plan to solve all other issues later.  For better or worse. But it is good to always have this kind of advice around. PhD consultants abound on Twitter. There’s a checklist for everything.  And we don’t mind… we are begging to graduate and we are not choosers.

  1. Solidarity

Sometimes it takes only a few words to express it all, when others have had that same experience. And that is one of the most comforting feelings for any human — more so the PhD student. This person expressed a challenge without getting into detail, and was able to get support and sympathy from other PhD students. With every little word of encouragement, retweet, and heart, she felt a little better.

Even old acquaintances reached out to suggest a little coffee break…

…you can tell our PhD student hasn’t been all that reachable on the phone.

  1. Much. Relate.

Sometimes you stand in solidarity with others because you know you might need it someday, or you know how it feels to need those words of encouragement. But sometimes someone’s challenge seems like an exact replica of yours. And a comic strip captures everything that you go through or feel. When someone out there tweets about something this real, we can’t help but testify.  We say things like “I feel so attacked right now” (this is a good thing), “stop talking about my life”, and like this person, “behold, the gospel”.

  1. The dark side…

Sometimes someone will give you a little dose of reality regarding the PhD journey – the low paying academic jobs awaiting you, the poor job prospects overall, how overqualified you are for most positions, and how unsuitable you are for industry. When this advice comes from a well-rounded source it is palatable – perhaps a current academic trying to find their way in the milieu, someone who quit but found something valuable to do (“industry”, their own passions etc.).  Anybody who is not all doom and gloom.  But then there are pages like this:

Is not having any more PhD students the solution to all of challenges facing academia and society? With pages like these you don’t even do an example tweet. Just do a quick scroll through the timeline and if you are a PhD student, tell me if you aren’t scared. And discouraged. Or at least mildly concerned.

  1. PhD secrets. How many secrets can one field have?

PhD secrets are like PhD advice 2.0. They aren’t regular advice; they are things Big Academia is hiding from you! Sometimes they are educational; sometimes they are to the tune of number 4 above. These secrets are multifaceted. Some hide in plain sight…

Some are really, really magical hacks you would otherwise have not uncovered…

Who knew changing the name of a file you have been working on forever could give you a new lease on life? Changing your perspective on something changes how you deal with it for sure. Sometimes we make things harder for ourselves by thinking they are more complex than they really are. And little mental hacks like these are the little miraculous things that we didn’t even know could unlock our creativity and keep us going.

  1. Big ideas on the PhD in the 21st century…

Through PhD Twitter you get access to all of the latest ideas on how universities can reinvent the program and stay valuable to society.  Through these ideas, we as students can also see where our careers are headed. We know that change is inevitable, and graduate programs will have to continually evolve to fit better into their contexts. This means negotiating our own place in it, thinking about the meaning of what we do, and because we are the custodians of the future PhD …maybe even think ahead on the best way to advance science and the PhD in the future.

These are just six of the multitude of things you encounter during a brief session of PhD Twitter. Sometimes I get tired of the self-obsession of the platform. But sometimes it’s the only thing that can keep me going. A little bit of hope goes a long way. And virtual hugs sometimes work.  PhD twitter is great. Anyone, big or small, can have a say in things. Get advice. Feel connected to a bigger picture. All at the tap of an app…

Posted on by Mbuyi Shadrack

Putting things into perspective

Last month my blog focused on appreciating the loved ones in our lives. Well, I thought this month I should share stories of what, specifically, has inspired that blog.

Mbuyi njoying the fresh air of the ocean during a field excursion
Me, enjoying the fresh ocean air during a field excursion

My late mother, with her unending support for what I do, never understood what I was studying or even why I went into postgraduate studies. In her mind the journey was supposed to be linear—finish basic education, go to university, finish your degree and go to work. I did not blame her though; this is what I was also told growing up, like it was some sort of convention. When I finished my first degree (2016) she was over the moon with excitement. I was too; my hard work had finally paid off.

In January of 2017 I got a call offering me a permanent job. I had a choice to make, between pursuing my postgraduate education, or taking up a stable job. It was not just my personal choice. I had to involve a lot of people. My mother was one, my prospective supervisors, my mentors, and I really needed to step back and think hard about the situation at home. Often, I have discovered, there is a thin line between what we want in life and what we are expected to do. I chose to explain to my mother why I was opting for postgraduate studies and made a conscious decision to turn down the job offer. To this day this was the best decision I ever made—although it did come with its own challenges.

One of these challenges was balancing my academic life and my social life. I did not realise that my social life was suffering until I was reminded. Before the reminder came through, my mother fell sick in the early months of last year. I was devastated and stressed out most of the time. It was making sure that my academics were up to par on one hand and taking care of mom on the other. When she got critical it became worse: I literally just split my time between studying and taking care of her. How I survived such immense stress was always because of her words to me when I decided to go for postgraduate studies:

“If it is something that you want to do, will make you happy and will ensure that the goals you have for your life you can achieve, then go and do it. Remember to be your best.”

It is these words that encouraged me to stay even after her passing. My goals alone (wonderful as they are) would not have given me the strength to go on.

Then: A friend of mine came to visit earlier this year, staying at my house for a week. This was a reminder about my broken social cycles. The conversations that we had about my journey, his experiences as a freshman, how much he valued our friendship and his questions around my time management all made me realize that I invested so much time in trying to exceed academic expectations that I paid little attention to anything else. Not that working hard is  a bad thing — but maybe the frustrations and stress would have been less intense had I just spent some time with people who care.

Having a great time with friends on campus during the academic break
Having a great time with friends on campus during the academic break

Most of the time during these conversations I got to think about all the messages and calls that I got on New Year’s Day. Some people there I hadn’t spoken to in months. This journey really is full of miracles.

So I’ve decided that from today onwards I will continue to do my very best academically and work every day to achieve my goals. Most importantly, however, I am going to put some time aside to spend with my family and friends. These people have sustained me and while working on my dream, I am going to make sure I take them with, so that I regret nothing when I look back.