Identity Flux

A PhD feels like invitation to prove that I can join the academic community. To do this I realised I need to change my identity from student to academic.  I know that researchers need to attend conferences, participate in career development, network,  produce publishable research, disseminate their work, and that's without considering all the teaching. Thankfully I'm not expected to achieve all this in my first week! But I realise need to be able to do these things eventually. In this sense, a PhD may be just as much about creating a new and shiny researcher identity as it is about the thesis. After all it is this identity which will help me succeed as a post doc.

The requirements of a PhD Student are very different from those of an undergraduate, where networking consisted of a pub crawl in fresher's week and career planning was only an afterthought on the way home from graduation. A Msc has helped me focus my career and helped me realise that I have  developed many skills which will help me make the identity transition  (i.e. a new awareness of the need to plan for after graduation).  So I feel less worried about the change. If there are others out there who are worried about what skills they need, it might be worth spending some time thinking about the beneficial ones you already have. 

I have also found many useful resources out there on the internet which has helped me consider how I need to change my identity. For example, the internet can be a great tool for networking, keeping up with research and disseminating your own. Here's a couple of links I found useful:

http://blogs.lse.ac.uk/impactofsocialsciences/2012/08/10/im-an-academic-and-desperately-need-an-online-presence-where-do-i-start/#more-7331

Here's a link to a PhD chat on why blogging can be useful: http://phdchat.pbworks.com/w/page/52525100/Blogging%20about%20your%20Research

Also, there are some sites offering advice on how to network successfully, how to ask the right questions at conferences and get work published. The thesis whisper is particularly useful for this. 

Reading these resources has helped sooth my anxiety, but I have to wonder if the identity of a PhD student is always in flux between student and academic? Do we enter a period of metamorphosis rather like a cocoon where some of us emerge bright butterfly's which usher in a new stage of insight to our fields, and others emerge moths determined to eat way at others work by becoming an adversarial reviewer who asks awkward stats questions at conferences?...What do you think?

Me, myself and blog about Dyslexia

Let's start with basic introductions. Very soon I am going to become a part-time PhD student.  There are a lot of PhD Students Blogs out there, each offering their own unique perspectives on what doing a PhD is like (I will put links up to more asap). After pondering what I had to offer I decided to write (partly) on experiences of being a dyslexic  PhD student. My reasoning was thus:

The effects of dyslexia vary widely and, contrary to what some would think, they are not all bad (a discussion of this is worthy of a post on its own).  When thinking about my future as an academic I consider being dyslexic one of the most helpful and yet challenging aspects of my personality.  I can't be the only dyslexic PhD student out there or the only one there will ever be. So  I hope writing about the ups and downs of my PhD my experiences may prove of some use to other dyslexics in similar situations. I'd also like to hear about others experiences.  So maybe this blog can provide a place to share those experiences...

I'd like to start off now by saying that I am new to blogging and my writing skills are very much a work in progress. So please, if you are reading this, bare with me!  Also, I'm not going to just blog about my experiences,  as I hope to get a few blogs out about psychology and research in general.

As I am about to start my PhD in just under a month (scary!) I've found myself thinking more and more about what exactly is a PhD? On a basic level it's a piece of research written up into a thesis.  But from what I have read and heard it's much more than that.  It's an experience which changes you and your life to the point that you are no longer the person who started the PhD.

 

So, this is me when I go in. I wonder who I will come out?