In this week’s episode I spoke to Ghee Bowman, just 3 weeks before he was due to submit his PhD in history. We talked about coming back to academia in your 50s, mental health and PhDs, a PhD as project management, and what he’s learnt about wri

Episode 8 - Thomas Lister on reading, writing, & data every day

Sep 16th, 2019 57m 40s

This week I'm talking to Thomas Lister, who's a final year PhD student looking at adult diagnosis of autism, particularly people who self-identity as autistic. We talked about reading, writing, and data work every day, not comparing yourself to

Episode 7 - Charli Stoneman on the mid-PhD slump and perserverance

Sep 2nd, 2019 59m 38s

This week I'm talking to Charli Stoneman about the mid-PhD slump, working out how to start writing, getting a dog, and doing a PhD at the right time.You can find Charli on Twitter here: https://twitter.com/Charli0511And at the University of Exe

Episode 6 - Jeff Lambert on the transition to post-doc life & how it's essential to fail

Aug 19th, 2019 33m 36s

This week I'm talking to Jeff Lambert about dealing with changing PhD topic from studying someone else's trial to conducting his own, the transition to post-doc life, moving from banking to non-academic research to academia, and how it’s essent

Episode 5 - Sunday Blake on perfection paralysis & slow violence in academia

Aug 5th, 2019 1h 13m

This week I'm talking to Sunday Blake about how the fear of not being perfect can be paralysing, so you don't get things done and your fears come true. We also talked about how disgreement in academia can be difficult to deal with if you come f

Episode 4 - Gemma Edney on the difficulty of explaining what a PhD actually is & not feeling pressured when you're done

Jul 22nd, 2019 58m 24s

This week I talk to Gemma Edney who completed her PhD in film studies a couple of months ago. As well as having the same broad subject area, Gemma also had the same supervisor as Katie Newstead from episode 3 and they actually graduated togethe

Episode 3 - Katie Newstead on how good enough is good enough

Jul 9th, 2019 56m 9s

This week I'm talking to Katie Newstead, who graduates from her film studies PhD next month. We talked about the importance of making connections with other PhD students, whether that's in person or through twitter, doing a PhD with a disabilit

Episode 2 - Samantha van Beurden on the importance of extra experiences around your PhD

Jun 24th, 2019 58m

This week I'm talking to Samantha van Beurden, who finished her PhD a year ago. We talked about the importance of all the other experiences you can get during your PhD, going part-time for the good of both her mental health and her research rec

Episode 1 - Adriana Suarez-Delucchi on dealing with big changes in her PhD

Jun 8th, 2019 57m 53s

In this first episode, I talk to Adriana Suarez-Delucchi - a final-year PhD student in Bristol studying water management by communities in rural Chile using institutional ethnography. We talked about being both an insider and an outsider when d

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