Tag: COVID-19

Coping as a PhD Student During COVID-19 by Alex Wakeman

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Prologue – February 2020: Pre-pandemic in the UK

I’ve spent the morning traversing half the length of Britain. The chill of winter hides in every shady corner but is powerfully countered by direct sunlight, resulting in a day of constantly putting on, then taking off, then putting back on my coat. Maybe I’m just restless because I’m on my way to a PhD interview. At King’s Cross I take a smaller, more tightly packed, less ventilated tube along the Victoria line. In the five-minute walk between Victoria station and the location of my PhD interview I bump shoulders with more people than I’ll see in the next ten months of the year.

When I’m ushered into the interview room, I’m informed that the panel of ageing academics will not be shaking anyone’s hands today – just to be safe. I’d like to think that despite my many insecurities, I am capable of admitting when I’m wrong, so I won’t make out like I was some sort of Nostradamus. The amount of people I’ve been in contact with throughout my journey seems normal, not skin-crawling and so the lack of handshaking strikes me as more rude than cautious, I think it’s a little overkill for ‘just some flu in China’. The UK had yet to officially register any coronavirus related deaths, but there had been a few confirmed cases. Two of which had been international students at the University of York – where I’d spent the day interviewing for a different PhD funding scheme just a few days prior.

“Don’t get COVID!” my family joked to me the day before I left for York. And it was a joke.

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The Power of Peer-to-Peer Coaching by Stefano Zucca

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In the run up to my postdoc, I was aware that studies into PhD students’ mental health were appearing frequently, but I felt that not enough was being done to promote the discussion in academia. This pushed me to start researching the topic myself, collecting different information, and led me to present on “The PhD students’ mental health crisis” to my institute.  It was the reception to this talk that made me realise how much researchers seek a place where they can share and discuss daily common issues they are facing in academia – my journey as a mental health advocate had begun.

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Fighting Uncertainty: Lessons Learned from Lockdown by Maddy Bleasdale

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“You should leave Germany as soon as possible” – words I never imagined I’d hear in the final few weeks of my PhD. Yet, I soon found myself packing my life into boxes and boarding a flight to the UK. 

The coronavirus pandemic has caused mass disruption. For me, it brought my PhD journey in Germany to an abrupt end – there was no obligatory thesis “hand-in photo” or celebratory drinks with my colleagues and friends. But while the coronavirus has introduced a high degree of uncertainty into all of our lives, for many academics uncertainty is the norm. 

But what is behind this uncertainty? 

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