PhD Defenses around the world: a Defense from Literature at the University of New Mexico

Today, I have the pleasure of hosting Dr. Karra Shimabukuro to the "Defenses around the world" series. Dr. Karra Shimabukuro recently defended her dissertation from the University of New Mexico. Her research interests include how issues of class and nationalism function in literature and popular culture, and reflect the fears, anxieties, and desires of a specific historical and cultural moment.
Her most recent work exposed the whole cloth creation of Elfego Baca as a New Mexican folk hero for Western Folklore, an examination of the folkloric forest’s impact in Twin Peaks for Cinema Journal: In Focus, Freddy Krueger’s folkloric roots as a bogeyman in Studies in Popular Culture, and the functional aesthetics in the Nightmare on Elm Street series in Style and Form in the Hollywood Slasher Film.

I started my coursework at the University of New Mexico in August 2013. I comped in Middle English literature, early modern literature, and folklore and methodology in February 2015. I defended my prospectus in March 2015. Early November 2017, I defended my dissertation.

In our English department, most dissertations are 150-200 pages, and roughly four or five chapters. We do not have a separate literature review, rather these are integrated into the chapters themselves. My dissertation, “Devilish Leaders, Demonic Parliaments, and Diabolical Rebels: Nationalistic Rhetoric in English Literature from Malmesbury to Milton” covered a variety of genres (chronicle, Middle English poem, Shakespearean tragedy and history, and epic) through the longue duree of 1125-1674. My dissertation consisted of an introduction, and then a chapter each on the genres above, and a conclusion. With this, plus the front matter, primary source list, secondary source list, it clocked in at 262 pages.

In our department we have a dissertation director, two to three other committee members (I had two), and an outside reader. The format of my defense was a 15-20 minute presentation of my work, then a round of 15 minute questions from each committee member, and then a follow up of 5 minute questions. Only two of my members were on campus, so I Skyped in my outside reader and third committee member. I enlisted friends the night before to test the tech, and made sure I emailed the committee with contingency plans. The room I defended in was designed for conferencing, so that helped, and I had defended my prospectus in it, since we’d also Skyped in my outside reader then, so I was familiar with the layout.

My defense was scheduled for 2p, and I got to campus a little after noon so I could get parking, grab lunch, and not feel rushed or panicked. I headed over to our department around 130p to check in, and be let into the room to set up. There were some minor hiccups-- wrong HDMI cable was hooked up, one member was in Google Hangouts, another in Skype, but we were able to get it all sorted, and only started a few minutes late.

I originally thought my presentation would be more about the process, and the larger takeaways, as I never understood summarizing the dissertation to people who had just read it. I also thought about mentioning some of the cool projects that had come out of the work, future plans, and digital humanities work. However, my director advised me to focus on the major arguments and I ended up giving a pretty conservative presentation that just walked through the dissertation. After my presentation, each member took their fifteen minutes to ask me various questions about the dissertation. As prep for this I had researched types of questions generally asked at vivas/defenses, and had prepared answers. I also went through emails and notes from my committee and wrote down concerns, pet peeves, issues, and also came up with answers for these as well as page numbers for reference. The weekend before, I reread the dissertation, and marked items based on these two things, that I thought might come up.

Not a single thing I prepped came up. There were no questions about how the project changed over time, or what I thought it contributed to the field, or why I defined my research question the way I did, or recent scholarship that hadn’t been included or my post dissertation plans. Instead, there were questions about how I defined the political devil, and key terms, as well as questions about why I did X over Y. For me, it felt more like a defense of ideas than I guess I was expecting. I took notes (which I used to address the revisions I was given), my friend videoed it, and at the time, I did not feel like there was anything I was asked that I didn’t respond well to. After the two rounds of questions, me, my best friend, and a graduate student who had attended were asked to leave while my committee deliberated. We were not out long, and when we returned, I was told that they had decided to pass me with minor revisions. My director then went over the list of revisions, I thanked my committee, and that was it.

In the week or so since, I have a couple of takeaways. The first is that even though much of what I prepped was never brought up, I felt better going in having done it. The second is that no matter how the defense goes, how you feel, both in the ramp up and afterwards, as long as you pass, that is what matters. Once they say “doctor” they’re not going to take it back. The rest just becomes things to check off the list. I finished my revisions, and I sent them off to my director, so I’m just waiting for those to be approved so I can submit. Maybe then it will feel real. Nothing in my life has really changed, I went back to my high school teaching job Saturday. And even though I felt good in the defense, in the week since, I have a vague, nagging feeling I disappointed my committee. I’m trying not to dwell on that. I’m trying to focus on what I’ve accomplished, and the new beginning I have.

Choose your perfect dissertation topic

Today, I have the pleasure of hosting Dr. Noelle Sterne with a guest post on dissertation writing. Dissertation coach and nurturer, editor, academic and mainstream writing consultant and soother, author, workshop leader, and spiritual counselor, Noelle Sterne, Ph.D. (Columbia University), has published over 400 pieces in print and online venues. Her monthly posts appear in theTextbook and Academic Authors blog Abstract and the literary blog Two Drops of Ink. In her academic consulting practice, Noelle helps doctoral candidates wrestle their dissertations to completion. Based on her practice, her handbook addresses students’ largely overlooked but equally important nonacademic difficulties: Challenges in Writing Your Dissertation: Coping with the Emotional, Interpersonal, and Spiritual Struggles (Rowman & Littlefield Education, 2015). In Trust Your Life: Forgive Yourself and Go After Your Dreams (Unity Books, 2011), with examples from her academic practice, writing, and life, Noelle shows readers how to release regrets, relabel their past, and reach lifelong yearnings. Noelle also shares her knowledge with ongoing community writing and meditation workshops and university academic presentations. Visit www.trustyourlifenow.com.

Dan sat in the library, his dissertation materials spread out before him. On the table, his laptop was open, ready to go, and papers, open books, and note cards were strewn across the table. He had promised himself that today he’d actually start writing. But all he could do was to stare at the wall clock. Dan had made the mistake of trying to leap into the dissertation without enough forethought or real passion for his topic.

It’s undeniable. The dissertation engenders a love-hate relationship, with all the exasperations, frustrations, teeth-clenching, and eye-rolling, and occasionally all the affection, elation, and fulfillment (eventually) of a primary human relationship. Therefore, your topic should be one that initially excites you, during the process sustains you throughout the inevitable peaks and gulleys, and eventually morphs into a satisfying career.

Topic Considerations
As a longtime coach of doctoral candidates, I’ve seen many, in the heat of first passion, bite off a topic that would take 40 monks without tablets 60 years to complete. I’ve seen other candidates take on topics because their professors suggest them or they think the topic is “hot” and they’ll have a better chance of publishing. None of these reasons are the right ones.

Right Topic Considerations
It’s almost axiomatic that many people choose concentrations and careers because of early personal experiences. A man becomes an oncologist because he couldn’t save his mother from Stage 4 cancer. A woman becomes a social worker specializing in cases of battered women because in childhood, every night from a crack in the closet door, terrified she watched her father beat her mother. A man raised in poverty becomes a financial counselor to help merchants in neighborhoods like his own succeed in their businesses.

Such motivations generally guarantee sustained interest in a dissertation topic. Whether or not your motives stem from earlier suffering, you don’t want to be like Dan. From my extensive experience, and the success of many graduate students I have counseled, I offer you ten suggestions, including questions and examples, to help you identify the perfect topic you’ll be living with for a long time.

1. Revisit your childhood dreams. How did you see yourself? What “professions” were your play favorites? Many kids like to play “doctor” (not that kind), and one of my clients loved to play “nurse.” She showed me photographs of herself at age 5 with an impressive collection of play bandages, ointments, even casts, and a doll house she’d made into a “clinic.” Today, with her doctorate, she’s director of a regional hospital.
2. Review your favorite undergraduate and graduate course papers. Which did you really like doing the work for? Which did you get As on? What about your master’s thesis? Would you feel excited expanding it? Lynn was an elementary school reading teacher who really cared about those struggling, stuttering readers. When she shuffled through her course papers and reviewed her master’s thesis, she saw that the comparisons of different reading programs were her best work. Her dissertation topic? A comprehensive comparison of two elementary school reading programs for their relative effectiveness. Now a Ph.D., Lyon is a professor teaching aspiring elementary reading and literacy teachers.
3. Think about troubling experiences you’ve had. Would you like to help remedy their causes? If, like the social worker, your pull toward the topic originates from an early traumatic experience, accept it. Negatives can be powerful motivators toward positive actions and activities. And think of all the people you’ll help.
4. What topic has fascinated you for a long time? What are you passionate about? What do you want to jump into and explore? A client in nursing and leadership and with many years experience at several hospitals, Jill observed how older nurses were discriminated against. Other than the obvious chronological reason (Jill was in her 40s), she burned to explore the assumptions and possible myths that administrators held in hiring and making assignments to these nurses. Jill’s dissertation and the article she developed from it became valuable additions to the literature—and helped change hospital policies.
5. What especially meaningful experiences have you had that you want to explore and know will make a difference? During surgery, Derrick had what he swore was a near-death (NDE) experience. He delved into the research, interviewed many people who had had similar experiences, and even scored an interview with a major author on the subject. Derrick’s dissertation dealt with NDE theories and testimonies. He is now revising his dissertation into a book and has a publisher interested.
6. What would you like to be known for? In the examples above, the students’ passion for their choices drove their ambitions. The answer to this question is likely inherent in your choice. Don’t be modest. Think about what you really know you can contribute. 
7. Don’t be deterred or discouraged if the topic has been “done.” Even if you discover that many scholarly articles have been published on your topic, your slant will be different. You can use those articles to show how your study is better, different, and worth not only the doctorate but publication.
8. Dream: Imagine how the topic can be used in your dream job and how you look forward to devoting your professional life to your interest. Sandra was a counselor in a geriatric care agency advising adults on the placement of their elderly parents in appropriate care facilities. She felt needed and fulfilled, knowing she was helping both generations to the best choices. Imagining her dissertation topic, Sandra saw how she could identify and discuss the many elements involved in placement. Exploration of this topic, she saw, would help her professionally to broaden her knowledge, enhance her abilities, and open her mind to new counseling techniques. After obtaining her degree, Sandra gave several presentations and published her findings in an elder care journal.
9. If you’re not in your dream job or career, paint mental pictures of the one you are aiming for. Observe and talk to others in this or a related career. What topic did they write on? How did it help their careers? What pointers can they give you about topic choice? Have they successfully transitioned from the dissertation results to real-world application? Do they seem happy and enthusiastic?
10. Finally (and maybe this should be first), listen inside for the topic that’s right for you. If you meditate, in your sessions, silently ask the question about topics. You may be “led” to certain people, scholarly literature, movies, or magazines that clarify or confirm your choices. If you don’t meditate, keep asking yourself the topic question and stay aware and open. If several possible topics occur to you, test them against the suggestions here and keep listening to your intuition.

Tiptoe to Your Topic
Choose one or two of these recommendations to explore each day. Don’t push but relax and let your unconscious lead you. Remember how important the choice is and how it will influence and direct your career and life. You deserve the perfect dissertation topic.

© 2017 Noelle Sterne

Adapted from Noelle Sterne, Challenges in Writing Your Dissertation: Coping With the Emotional, Interpersonal, and Spiritual Struggles (Rowman & Littlefield Education, 2015).

For reprinting, please contact Noelle Sterne through her site: www.trustyourlifenow.com

PhD Defenses around the world: a Defense in Belgium

Today, Damien Debecker talks about his PhD defense in Belgium in the "Defenses around the world" series. Damien is a bioengineer by training and received his PhD in the field of heterogeneous catalysis. He is now an Associate Professor at the University of Louvain, in Belgium, teaching physical chemistry and separation processes. In his research he focuses on the preparation and study of new heterogeneous catalysts and biocatalysts to design chemical processes in a greener way. He is also an occasional blogger, and quite active on twitter.

Recently, he launched a science blogging hub called "External Diffusion", convinced by the idea that scientists have a strong desire to talk about their findings, not only via scientific publications but also through engaging online contents. You can connect with them on social media or visit the blog.

I defended my PhD in May 2010, at the UCL in Belgium. My contract was running until the 30th of September. However, I wanted to apply for a specific post doc fellowship and I had to be a doctor by June. When you have such a strict deadline (normally it’s the end of the contract but it can be something else) you have to start counting backwards. Indeed, in Belgium we have a two-step PhD defense. Basically there are two events: a private defense and a public defense. This is rather specific. Let me explain!

Approximately one month ahead of the private defense the manuscript must be sent to all jury members. The private defense is actually the most important step in the process. It is not public – as you may have guessed from the name. Everybody’s meeting: the candidate, the promoter, the jury member along with a president of the jury (who is usually an experienced professor from the faculty or Institute). So, I had to make a short presentation of something like 20 minutes just to get the session started. Then, the jury is asking questions. They take the time to go chapter by chapter into all the details they like or dislike. Believe me; they sometimes like to go into the details. Usually the promoter remains silent, but he may also jump into the discussion from time to time to give his opinion. My promoter was even kinder: he was taking note of all the remarks so that I could concentrate on just answering the questions I was asked and then get the complete list at the end. The session is supposed to last 3 hours max but it regularly goes over time. It did in my case. We even had to order sandwiches for lunch! This doesn’t necessarily mean that the jury was not happy with the work. Simply they had a lot of things to say and some of the points were actually debated among me and the jury and also among different jury members.

Ultimately, the jury has to decide among three decisions:

1. “there are big flaws and the candidate is not ready: we have to meet again in a few months and start over!”, 
2. “the thesis is acceptable but some major modifications have to be made in the manuscript or some additional experiments are needed; we ask the candidate to send again a draft of thesis in e.g. 3 months, and after a distance check we will notify if a public defense date can be fixed”,
3. “the thesis can be defended publicly; we only ask for minor corrections which can be made by the candidate directly and checked only by the promoter”.

I felt relieved when the third option was chosen by my jury. I basically didn’t really have the choice if I wanted to make it on time for my post doc fellowship. Once the authorization of organizing the public defense is granted, the candidate knows that the PhD will be granted. Yet the party is not over! So I sat back at my desk to make the last (small but numerous) corrections, I sent the final text to printing, I prepared a long presentation, and I invited all my family and friends to the public defense.

The public defense - as you may guess from the name - is public. Usually family and friends come over and obviously all colleagues from the laboratory too. The jury is dressed in gown and hat. The final book has to be printed and available to all. The candidate makes a presentation of 45 minutes. Then the jury members will ask questions again each for 10 to 15 minutes. Usually the questions asked at that point are more general, more open, or pointing towards the prospects of the work. Fair enough! All tiny scientific and technical details had been discussed one month earlier. Nevertheless the session typically lasts two hours and – believe me – it usually gets boring for the layman!

At the end of my presentation I wanted to finish by a slide saying thank you. But I also had prepared three slides to thank my family, friends and promoter. Taken by my enthusiasm I just went along with my presentation forgetting about the questions. So basically I was already thanking everybody for their support during my PhD, even though I was still supposed to answer questions for about one hour! I realized it too late. Luckily the president of the jury made a humorous transition towards the questions. After one hour of discussion, the jury left the room to deliberate and came back 15 minutes later holding a diploma. Well I could see it and touch it for a few seconds only, just enough to sign it. Then it went back with the secretary of the jury to follow the process of getting the Rector's signature (I received it back only a few months later). My promoter made a short speech. And then I invited everybody for a drink and some snacks. In the evening my colleagues and close family were invited at the restaurant. And the evening was completed by a “decent party”!

Today, I am myself a PI. I have been a jury for several PhD now. And my first PhD student just defended her thesis last month! (Applause!) I have to say here that the specificity of the two-step PhD defense in Belgium is something I really like. During the private defense everything can be said. As a jury member you can freely point at things that are wrong or demand modifications. As a candidate you truly have an interaction, for three hours at least, with true experts in the field. In this way, you have the chance to confront your work with the expertise of others, not only your promoter. And to improve your final manuscript, the one you will be so proud of. If you like you can compare this with the reviewing process in publishing. Imagine you could discuss live with the reviewers instead of getting just cold reviewing report in your mailbox. Very valuable!

What do you think? Please comment!

The Dyslexic PhD Experience

Today, I invited Claudia Gonzalez to share her PhD experience in a guest post. Clau is a PhD student in Strategic Management at the University of Washington. Her research interests revolve around healthcare and technology. She blogs about the dyslexic graduate student experience at dyslexicphd.wordpress.com.

There are a lot of misconceptions about what being a dyslexic means. From the more benign, “Does that mean you can read and write backwards?” to the more harmful, “So, can you read?”

While there has been some media attention paid to famous dyslexic entrepreneurs like Sir Richard Branson, there is still very little understanding of what being dyslexic means.

Disclosing your dyslexia is a very risky gamble. If you are a student, you can run the risk of faculty in your program thinking you are not qualified and loosing what mentorship is available. With such high stakes, I initially chose to hide the fact that I am dyslexic.

Unfortunately, that meant that faculty expect the same level of productivity and efficiency from me as from my peers. I often need more time to get through readings, and I always need a lot of time to write. However, I don’t get those accommodations because of the fear of being perceived as incompetent.

Dyslexia has led me to have a singularly lonely PhD student experience. My fear of outing myself has kept me from finding others like me and from accessing resources to be successful. Worse still, when I am confronted with my own impostor syndrome, I genuinely have a reason to think that I do not belong.

Academia, whether in the sciences or the humanities, revolves around reading and writing. As good as I am with math, at the end of the day I need to read enough to enter academic conversations and write my own contributions. When an entire profession is centered around the two activities I naturally struggle with the most, it is very easy to think that I just don’t belong.

Yet, this fear of disclosing my dyslexia has also helped me become resilient in the face of uncertainty and rejection. Most importantly, it has given me the opportunity to find new and creative ways to close the gap between what I am capable of doing and what I am expected to do.

With the help of accessibility tools such as text-to-speech and dictation, I have been able to successfully take all my classes and complete my research projects. As time goes by, I have been able to find workarounds to almost all of the challenges that I have faced. For instance, recording myself talking in order to learn new information.

Despite this progress, I still feel alone. I have looked but not yet found a community of dyslexic researchers. There are a few articles online from several years ago, but they do not have enough information to help me cope. How do you decide to disclose? How do you read all of that material? How do you handle teaching and writing on the board? There are so many questions and no one to ask. I should not be surprised. As I said, this profession screams NOT FOR DYSLEXICS.

So, I started a blog. I use it to talk about my experience as a dyslexic, underrepresented minority woman in academia. However, beyond just recording my experiences, my goal is to collect resources for current or potential dyslexic PhD students.

I am still afraid to disclose my dyslexia in my own school. One day my faculty may find my blog (or even this article) and realize that I am different. When that day comes, I hope that having passed my comprehensive exams without accommodations would be enough to show that I do belong. I hope that the progress I have made towards my dissertation demonstrates that I can do it, even if it does take me a little bit longer.

The risk is worth it. Doing a PhD is hard enough, and being dyslexic requires some additional resources and coping strategies that I have learned the hard way. So, to anyone who is dyslexic: find me, you are not alone. It is possible to be in this profession and be dyslexic. I am doing this, one day at a time, and so can you.

Volunteering as an act of self-care

Today, I'm inviting Rebecca Geoffroy-Schwinden to share her perspective on self-care in academia. Rebecca is a musicologist who researches sound as politics since the eighteenth century, particularly musicians during the French Revolution. Her recent work has been published in Studies in Eighteenth-Century Culture, Kinetophone, and Provoke!. Rebecca will receive her Ph.D. in musicology from Duke University this May and will begin a position as Assistant Professor of Music History at the University of North Texas in August. You can follow her on Twitter @BeccaSchwinRoy.

I circulated my dissertation to the dissertation committee precisely five hours before I sat down to write this post. Before I venture too far into a post-grad school frame of mind, I want to take this opportunity to speak as my Ph.D. candidate self and to share one way that I took care of that self during my last year of writing, which coincided with my first year on the dreaded academic job market.

Last August, I began to prepare job applications. I knew the 2014–2015 academic year held potential for complete emotional deflation, despite the fact that I had mercifully been able to find funding from my university's graduate school for one more year of writing. Dissertation problems, when you're in the middle of them, can seem like soul-crushing catastrophes. It is a lonely process and oftentimes human interaction mostly comes in the form of critical feedback on hours of painstaking work. Compounded with job market rejections, the final year of dissertating can be downright devastating. The devastation, at least for me, came from a search for purpose: the "real world" insists that Ph.D.s in the arts and humanities are increasingly useless, while the job market implies that you aren't welcome there either. At a time when you should be celebrating that the finish line is in sight, you're also anxiously contemplating the possibility that there might not be anything there to welcome you upon arrival.

I decided to pre-empt these scary feelings, which I had already projected and mentally lived before the year even began. I started volunteering a few hours per week: two hours I walked dogs at the local animal shelter and three hours I tutored an adult to improve literacy skills. Although I worried about taking time away from the writing process, I knew that I had to take at least 5 hours of time off per week anyway. I also knew that without a sense of purpose that paid off immediately, I might not be able to finish the dissertation at all. Volunteering gave me a sense of utility, a break from the dissertation, and a living connection that often becomes lost during that long final push to finish. It also forced me to put dissertation problems in perspective. There are animals without homes and adults who can't read. They needed me to show up twice per week. And feeling like I mattered saved me from succumbing to a negative state of mind.

Bill Clinton has been famously praised and ridiculed for describing his philanthropic work as "selfish." But during the past year I could not help but feel the power of mutually beneficial service. For five hours per week I felt that my existence in the world made a difference to living beings. Humans need to feel needed. During the 2013–2014 academic year, my teaching certainly filled this void. I realize many Ph.D. candidates write their dissertations under stressful time frames that include children and other jobs. This self-care suggestion is certainly not for those who are already stretched to the brink. However, for those who only have the dissertation to face every morning, finding a cause close to your heart and using that as a productive outlet during the dissertation stage can provide a valuable source of self-care.

Pulling the Plug as an Act of Self-Care

Today, Eric Vanden Eykel is sharing his views on self-care in academia with us. Eric is an Assistant Professor of Religion at Ferrum College, where he teaches biblical studies and world religions. The focus of his research is in the history and literature of early Christianity. He and his wife have two daughters and a dog. You can find him on Twitter at @evandeneykel.

Several years ago now, while I was studying for my doctoral qualifying exams, I stumbled across a provocative read: The Shallows: What the Internet is Doing to Our Brains. In it, technology and culture author Nicholas Carr argues that the internet is changing how we think and process information, and not in a good way. At the end of the preface he leaves the reader with a haunting proposition: “The computer screen … is so much our servant that it would seem churlish to notice that it is also our master.”

I found Carr’s argument compelling because at that time I was experiencing many of the issues that he mentions: difficulty reading for extended periods, trouble focusing and retaining information, anxiety about not being able to read everything, etc. All of these are symptoms of what is commonly called “information overload,” and any one of them can be crippling or even fatal (metaphorically, of course) for one who is studying for their doctoral qualifying exams.

In an attempt to remedy my situation, I tried an experiment: leave the laptop/phone/tablet behind when I was heading out to study, start taking notes by hand, and see what happens. To say that the first few weeks were difficult would be a gross understatement. Some days, my angst would peak before I had even escaped my driveway: “What if someone e-mails me? What if I need to look something up online? What if I need to download an article that one of my books mentions? What if I need to take a picture of something awesome?” But I pushed through, and after a few months I found not only that my focus had improved, but that I was remembering details of what I was reading in a way that I’d never before. Even the quality of my sleep increased! I had discovered firsthand the joys of unplugging.

Fast forward a few years and I no longer have the benefit of being able to leave my laptop behind for extended periods of time. In academia, the ability to spend months doing nothing but reading and thinking about interesting books is a luxury afforded to graduate students and faculty on sabbatical. For the rest of us, electronics are an inescapable part of the job: e-mails from students and faculty don’t answer themselves; course management software, however intelligent, needs a push in the right direction every now and again; and workload and scheduling forms must never be written by hand!

But while unplugging for months at a time might not be feasible for most, the good news is that there are simple ways to unplug for short periods of time every day, and significant benefits to be had by doing so. Below are three examples, all of which involve what has become (at least in my life) perhaps the most dangerous and harmful device that I own: my smartphone.

1) Take a walk — By far the easiest way to unplug is to put actual, physical distance between you and your electronic devices. So about once every two hours while I’m at work, I go for a walk. I have a route through the quad that can be accomplished in about ten minutes, which is long enough to feel like I’ve taken a break, but short enough that it doesn’t affect my ability to accomplish my daily tasks. The key to making these walks “unplugged” is that my phone has to stay behind in my office. Otherwise I am too tempted to answer it when it buzzes in my pocket or to fiddle with it as I’m walking. While I am walking I try to focus on something mundane in an effort to give my brain a real break: counting my steps or the number of seams in the sidewalk usually does the trick.

2) Designate a phone-free zone in your house — Another way to guarantee that you get some unplugged time every day is to prohibit use of your phone in a specific part of your house. It should be a place that you use on a daily basis, otherwise you are kidding yourself. My kitchen table is my phone-free zone. When I am sitting there, whether it is to eat, to play Play Doh with my children, or to chat with my wife, I do not allow myself to touch my phone. If by force of habit I find that it has leapt out of my pocket and into my hand, I put it in the other room. The kitchen table is an ideal phone-free zone for me because it is also one of the most social spots in our house, and making it phone-free allows me to unplug not only for my own benefit, but to give those seated there my full attention and respect.

3) Exercise — Last, but certainly not least, exercise can be a wonderful means of unplugging. I say “can be” because many forms of exercise (walking, biking, running, etc.) lend themselves to headphone/phone use. I used to run with headphones because I liked listening to podcasts (it made me feel more productive). I don’t anymore, for two reasons: first, because I found the experience of running without headphones to be significantly more relaxing; and second, because the ultimate source of my music while running was my phone, and its presence had started to become a distraction. I have no qualms whatsoever with those who use headphones while exercising, but I have found their absence from my exercise routine to be freeing.

I’m no Luddite; I spend a good portion using, enjoying, and benefitting from my electronic devices. But I have found that giving myself frequent breaks from these devices helps me to be a more productive scholar, a more present husband and father, and a happier and healthier human being.

Stumbling towards grace with self-care in academia

Today, I have invited Kathy McKay to share her story and insights on self-care in academia. Kathy is a postdoctoral research fellow at the University of New England, Australia. Her work focuses on stories of suicide and resilience.

Hand on heart.
I am not good at self-care. It’s very much still a work in progress and only became a vague priority when I burnt out last year and fell sick. Self-care is my stumbling towards grace, because it’s far too easy to lose sight of yourself in this work. True, you see yourself all too clearly in the lack - what more needs to be done? What am I not doing? But it's harder to see yourself as enough – that you deserve to, and that it’s OK to, not work all the time. In all the busyness, it’s far too easy to forget to stop.

Pieces about self-care seem sometimes to be written as prevention, with things to do to avoid burnout. They sometimes assume you can take time off, that deadlines are soft, and that your track record can handle the delay a break will bring.

This is not one of those pieces.

Burnout sometimes does not ring a warning bell. Burnout sometimes looms over you in the middle of the night, clutching at your chest while you gasp for breath, so you wake up the next day and struggle to find the energy to do the basic things, let alone be vaguely intellectual. Burnout makes absolutely everything you need to do during a day hard, even the simplest task that yesterday would not have given you a second thought. And, because burnout can be so closely tied to anxiety and depression, it is also, to paraphrase the brilliant writer Anna Spargo Ryan, dull. The sheen is wiped off everything.

This is a piece to hopefully give solace to those in the grips of, or in the aftermath of, burnout. How do you take care of yourself when absolutely everything is exhausting and there are still a million deadlines due? This is not meant to give you more things to do. God knows, when you're burnt out the very last thing you want is more things to do. These are things that have worked for me - or at least keep me more mindful to be more caring of myself and provide more useful warnings for when I need to rest. These are things I'm trying to not forget to do amidst the grant writing and the teaching and all the deadlines in between, and when time off is an unavailable luxury.

• Vent to friends.
A caveat here: not just anyone. These are the friends who get it, who have either been in the trenches or are there alongside you. Ones who don’t just say meaningless, placating things simply because those words seem nice to say. The ones who let you cry, or whatever it is you need to do to vent, until you’re ready to go back to the deadline. They are the ones who understand the peaks and troughs of academic life, where a grant can be rejected on the same day a paper is rejected. And when they say meaningless, placating things, it feels a bit better because things tend to get better eventually. Or more absurd.

• At some point you need to eat and move away from the screen.
Self-care is hard. Looking after yourself is much harder, requires much more attention, than not taking care of yourself. Making a nutritionally-dense meal takes far more time than toast. Exercising takes more time than not doing anything. However, the time you save in the short-term bites you later – and bites with teeth. It makes you very sick. Because these things are so easy to push to the side – I’ll eat later, I’ll exercise tomorrow – they’re the ones that I structure into my life with an organisation that is unlike me in every other way. I joined a fitness challenge that came with a meal plan so the part of me that always wants to do well at everything is placated and inspired. I make enormous meals on Sunday to freeze for the rest of the week because I live by myself and there’s no one else to fall back on. These activities as well, when I’m being mindful, also allow a quite space as well, just to be.

• Find a mentor totally outside academia.
I’ve only just started working with a non-academic mentor and, so far, it’s been confronting. The thing is, someone outside academia hasn’t normalised the same things we have and they see what’s not working for you more clearly. Working with this mentor is making me realise how little time I’ve spent since my PhD just doing something quietly, just for me, with no constructive feedback attached. Learning that I am not just an academic, that my identity can be more than that, is both frightening and liberating.

• Remembering the small beauties.
Unexpectedly adopting my demented wonder of a small cat has actually been one of the best things for my wellbeing. She pulls me back into the moment as I watch her stalk a butterfly in the garden (think the Simon’s cat video), or when she decides I am the most comfortable place to sleep. Plus she loathes my phone and will push it out of the way, just as she will steal pens from my hand and hide them under the couch if she thinks I am working too much at home and not paying enough attention to her. And the thing about small beauties is that you don’t have to do anything more than simply look out your window and exhale, just for a moment.

Reading these, you may not agree. Self-care is so tricky because it not only completely individualised (not everyone appreciates my cat) but it’s also not our natural way in academia. How do you turn your brain off when an idea is bubbling in the back of your mind but it’s Sunday afternoon or four o’clock in the morning? Self-care is something I’m training myself to do, and appreciate, and I stumble towards this grace all the time. It’s a learning process like any other.

And I wish you nothing but wellness in your journey.

Avoiding mental burn-out by organizing your day around self-care activities

Today I have the pleasure of inviting Catherine to share her views on self-care in academia. Catherine is currently writing up her PhD in linguistics at the University of York, studying the role that onomatopoeia play in child language development. You can find her on Twitter at @cathesmith24.

Being an effective researcher is a balancing act, and for me, achieving that balance requires real attention to my emotional, mental and physical well-being. I wasn't far into my PhD before I started suffering mental burn-out - I'd be unable to focus for days at a time, leading to a cycle of guilt, misery and unproductivity. I realised that I needed to make some serious changes to my approach if I wanted to do a good job of this PhD - after all, three or four years is a long time, and I wanted those years to be as enjoyable and rewarding as they could possibly be.

I started with some strict rules: no working at the weekends, not even to answer emails - I aim to go for two whole days without even switching on my computer. This works for me, as the two days off gives me time to reset mentally, and by Monday morning I'm ready to get going again, with the five days ahead presenting a manageable chunk of working time. I also limit the hours I work in the week, and anything that can't be done before 6pm in an evening has to wait until tomorrow. For me, this helps to limit procrastination, knowing that there's a deadline waiting at the end of each day.

Monday to Friday, 9 til 5. It sounds pretty much like a normal working week for any normal job. But writing a PhD isn't like a normal job, and I don't believe that it's necessary to stick to such a routine if that doesn't work for you. It doesn't work for me: when I worked in a normal job I struggled to get through the afternoons, as I seem to hit a wall at about 3 o'clock. Since I've got the freedom to let my day run as I please, I use these afternoon slumps to my advantage, and every day I take an hour's break at around 3pm, or whenever I start to lose focus. I go for a walk or a run, take a nap, do some yoga or even some laundry, and when I return to my desk an hour later I'm refreshed and ready for another couple of hours' work. I try to get outside at least twice every day - one morning walk before I start the day, and then again in the afternoon or a short stroll in the evening; getting outside frees up any blockages in my mind, and I almost always feel less anxious and more clear-headed when I return home.

I think there's lots of scope for creating mindful routines to accompany work, and as I've approached the end of my thesis-writing period I've come up with numerous ways of 'setting the scene', to make the difficult process of sitting and writing or reading for long periods of time more manageable, and even indulgent. I tried working in coffee shops but I found myself too easily distracted, so instead I treated myself to some nice loose-leaf hibiscus tea to drink while I write. I also burn peppermint oil, as peppermint is good for concentration. It might sound simple, and perhaps a little ridiculous, but sitting in one place for hours is tiring on the mind and the body, so the added stimulation really helps to keep me going mentally.

It's taken me over two and a half years to find a routine and an approach to doing my PhD that suits me personally, putting self-care at the heart of my day and fitting everything else around that. If I think too much about the fact that I don't work weekends or into the evenings I end up feeling guilty, as if I'm somehow doing it all wrong, but for me my approach to my research only increases my productivity, and reduces the number of hours and days lost to mental exhaustion. Of course, when deadlines are approaching or when I take on some unexpected extra commitments, I have to be flexible if I want to fit everything in, but having a steady and reliable routine for the majority of the time makes it easier to cope with those busier periods when they turn up.

Introducing: Writers' Lab

A new year, a new series of posts!

I'll be featuring a series of posts, specifically about writing: the Writers' Lab.

What can you expect from the Writers' Lab?

You'll find hacks, tips and tricks about writing, as well as best practices, and a lot about what I learned while writing my dissertation.

But besides the academic writing stories, I'm also inviting writers from all niches and all ways of life to share their stories and insights. As I'm convinced that the general lines are the same for all writers, regardless of their output, I want to create a space where we can all learn from each other. The narrative behind the words, the story behind the stories is what we will try to cover from all different angles.

Write for the Lab

If you want to contribute with a guest post for the Writers' Lab, just pitch me through the Contact page.

If you are a writer (in the broadest definition), give me a shout out - I am also planning to feature a series of interviews.

Calling for Contributions

In 2013, I'm opening PhD Talk up for guest contributions.

If you would like to try out blogging before starting your own site, feel free to submit a contribution.
If you are a seasoned blogger, you're absolutely welcome too.

So, if you feel like writing a contribution for this blog, don't hesitate to Contact Me.



Topics that can be covered are:
- civil engineering research
- personal stories from graduate school
- finding a job after your PhD
- research and writing skills
- inspirational and motivational ideas for graduate students
- your experience with writing, for the upcoming Writers' Lab, in which I am searching stories from writers of all ways of life: bloggers, journalists, novelists, poets, academic writers,...

Pitch me with your idea, and I'll give you further details!