Building a Supportive Network

In this post, Yaru Chen, a new UoB PGR in Corpus Linguistics, tells us about an event on “Building a Supportive Network” she attended in the College of Arts and Law on Wednesday 15 January 2020.

What was “Building a Supportive Network” about?

This event, organised by the Postgraduate Student Experience Officer (a recently graduated PhD from CAL, also a trustworthy person from whom I always seek advice) in the College of Arts and Law Graduate School, was designed to help us improve our networking skills and develop our supportive networks. These supportive networks are not only beneficial in offering us emotional and academic support during our PhD study, but are also helpful for giving us career support once we have graduated.

Yaru's Supportive Network, showing her supervisors in the centre and others (including family, friends and UoB staff) offering different types of social support — Yaru’s Supportive Network

Continue reading “Building a Supportive Network”

Grappling with Fear

Mélina with her soft-bound thesis outside the Aston Webb Buiding — Mélina after submitting her thesis (Dec 19)

In this post, Mélina Delmas (who previously welcomed you to UoB) looks at four common fears most research students face and some tips on how to cope with them. Congratulations to Mélina on submitting her thesis in December 2019!

“I’m not working enough”

Throughout the course of my PhD, I often found myself grappling with the number of hours I worked. Being an Arts student, I didn’t have to conduct experiments or to come to the lab. Thus, some days, I found myself working five hours maximum, which made me feel like I should be doing more. Continue reading “Grappling with Fear”