PhD Mum

If you are thinking about or are returning to education after time away, then this is the post for you. PhD Mum Returning to education as a mum is a hard decision and there are a lot of things to consider; can I really afford it? Can I fit it in with my children? Am I clever enough to do it? Am I too old? When I was on maternity leave, I began to question everything I thought I was. I felt my brain turned to mush because my sole reason for waking up was to feed and change my son. I returned to the PhD after 6 months of maternity leave. In pretty much every way, my experience of the PhD mum journey has been amazing – that’s not to say it hasn’t been challenging – but I have experienced the support of a fantastic supervisory team, the working hours were extremely flexible, and my partner was very understanding. I think if one of these three things were not in place, then my experience would have been something completely different.   Here are my five p...

This was written from my experience of doing a PhD in a Psychology context. Please note, this experience is always going to be different depending on the subject so whilst I would encourage you to read my experience, I can't guarantee that this is exactly what you will go through if you are not doing a PhD in Psychology. So you have started a PhD – this is the most important decision you have made.  To start.  Well done!  (Try to remember why you made this decision and remind yourself of it throughout your PhD as you will question this at least 10 times a week until you finish it). I found the first 6 months of the PhD the most difficult to adjust to. Not only because I was pregnant, but because the pace of it was so different to what I had been used to. The emphasis was definitely on me, as an academic, developing a research question rather than just “doing a research study”. I think if you go through academic life without a break, this transitio...

(within health/psychology) I wish someone had told me this when I first started my PhD. The key to a successful research piece: simplicity. The most basic and most often forgotten point of a study, at any level, is to have a very clear and succinct question(s) in mind that you want to answer. It sounds so straight forward and obvious doesn’t it. But it is amazing how, on a 3 to 5 year journey, you can lose sight of what your research aim is.  "If you can't describe a topic in simple terms, you don't understand it ." (Einstein)  Remember, within your study, you are not going to solve the world's problems.  I started wanting to improve end of life care for all; which in hindsight was very noble of me but completely impractical! In pragmatic terms, you have a time frame within which you need to do the study and present the results - save complexity for the reasons why you should definitely get a post doctorate post. This simplicity then pays off in dif...

I started this blog about 12 months in to my PhD. My monster was turning 2. My mental abilities were returning post-sleep deprivation. As a new mum, I would look at this blog/instagram/Facebook malarkey and wonder why someone would even bother taking the effort of doing this, given the demands of being a mum. As a PhD student, I would think the same. It is time consuming, especially when there is a thesis to write! Here are a few reasons I did: 1. Returning to the PhD after being mum, I felt a sudden lack of confidence. In my ability as an academic and generally as a writer. The process of writing the blog, however imperfect the spelling/grammar/style really helped me to get back onboard with the writing process. This reason alone has made blogging worthwhile. 2. I don't really write with the idea that loads of people will read it, or to provide lots of advice, but the process for me is very cathartic. A psychological break from the daily grind. I hope that somewhere, a mu...