Do You Struggle With Procrastination in Graduate School? As a 2nd year student in graduate school I felt like a fraud in a conference room filled with PhDs from academia and industry. My thesis supervisor had just agreed to present our research to our collaborators in industry to demonstrate how we had used their funding. […]
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Perfectionism Doesn’t Have to Ruin Your Thesis or PhD
Perfectionism In Your Thesis Writing Is the Enemy of Progress “I can’t stop doing literature search!” said Claire while we were eating lunch, just a month before her thesis deadline. “I want to start writing, but I always feel like I need more articles,” she sighed. Claire was not alone in her struggle to finish the literature […]
The Time Paradox of Dissertation Writing
Why Is It So Hard To Write Your Dissertation When You Have “All Day”? “I was writing more when I was stealing time from my research!” my student, Petra confessed. She was getting her PhD in Biology, and struggling to pull her data into a cohesive Dissertation. In hopes of finishing by the end of […]
A Simple Tool to Get 500+ Words On the Page Even If You Have Writer’s Block
Why Traditional Advice For Dissertation Writing Doesn’t Work I had a dollar for every time someone had told me to “glue my butt to the chair” until I got a certain word count in my Dissertation, I would be flying on a private jet to Fiji right now! The sad reality was that gluing my […]
5 Steps to Stop Distractions From Derailing Your Thesis Writing
How Do You Deal With Distractions During Thesis Writing? Distractions can make your life seem out of control. Even if you lock yourself in a room to focus on your thesis writing, distractions in your mind will always be there. Thoughts pop into your head about your career, the bills, your family, and that thing […]
5 Steps to Crush Your Thesis Deadlines When You’re Superbusy
You Can Finish Your Thesis Even When You Are Spread Really Thin… Boom! Everything went black for a few seconds… What happened? When I opened my eyes I was lying on my back on top of a fresh pile of snow. It was almost 9 pm and I must have slipped and fell on an ice […]
How to Write A Thesis When You Can’t Even Look At It Anymore
How to Write A PhD Thesis Even If You Feel Completely Stuck If you are wondering about how to write a thesis when you feel completely overwhelmed, I understand your dilemma. During my first five years in graduate school I envied senior students who were so close to the finish line. I imagined that once […]
How Do You Get a Job in a Bad PhD Job Market?
The PhD Job Market is Never Easy One of the interesting things about the PhD job market is that it’s never exactly “great.” Regardless of how the economy is doing, getting a PhD level job can feel like an uphill battle. There are many job you “could” do, but you are overqualified for them. Conversely, […]
Can’t Decide Between Academia and Industry After Your PhD?
How Do Make A Decision About Your Career When You Only Know What You Don’t Want? Undergraduates regularly fall asleep during lectures. But, how often do professors fall asleep while they are lecturing? My Biochemistry professor in my senior year in college had a reputation of speaking in incoherent sentences and looking like he was […]
Why You Don’t Have to Settle for Any PhD Job That Comes Along
How Do You Get a Job After Your PhD? Here is a conundrum: Every year thousands of students get their PhDs, and many of them know that (according to the news) there aren’t enough jobs for PhDs. Being unemployed is one of the most common fears that PhDs face. The question isn’t why someone would […]