Tag: PhD life

Diversity, Student-focused

My hidden disability and how I owned it

By Brittany Dodson, Penn State University, USA

My world is quiet. I don’t hear thunder until it’s right on top of me, and sometimes I can’t hear a person talking to me. When I pick up the phone, the person on the other end sounds like Charlie Brown’s teacher from the Peanuts cartoons. I’ve had this hearing loss all my life. It wasn’t until graduate school that I realized I avoided situations, because I wouldn’t be able to hear well. And it started to affect my professional life as a scientist.

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Diversity, Education & careers, Student-focused

3 ways I battled imposter syndrome

By Brittany Maule, Indiana Department of Environmental Management, USA

About halfway through my graduate degree, I reached a point where I’d accomplished a few things. My new video was done on my research, I’d been selected to attend a competitive conference on science communication, and I had finished up a summer collecting data on algae in streams. Pausing, I should have hung my hat on a productive first year. But I didn’t feel this way – not at all.

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Education & careers, Student-focused

PhD reflections: lessons and advice

By Ralitsa Madsen, Institute of Metabolic Science, Cambridge, UK

As a driven PhD student who is dedicating most of my waking hours to a very ambitious project, I often need to justify my choice to others. Wouldn’t I be set up for success with fewer hours in the lab, less scientific reading and a bit more faith in my own talent? My usual response is to ask the following question: how do elite athletes succeed?

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Education & careers, Student-focused

A Journey Known as PhD

By Debosree Pal, Jawaharlal Nehru Centre for Advanced Scientific Research, India

Why is a PhD called a Doctor of Philosophy? The term finds its origin way back in the 19th century in German faculties where it was introduced to incorporate arenas of research that were not encompassed under the regular disciplines of medicine, law or theology. As the world progressed and more areas of research in science were introduced, the term was retained.

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