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...

It seems so surreal to be able to write about my viva - in which I had to defend my research. It means I have actually done a PhD (!), and survived the process! (I have no idea how long it will take before this sinks in). I had previously read the experience of others and doubted if I would ever make it to this point. I'm sure this is a common feeling to all PhDers - especially those with a toddler hanging off you - at so many points along the journey. Whilst it's all fresh in my mind, I thought I would write about my viva, so that if you are prepping for yours, you can read this and hopefully feel a bit more "ready"!  Pre-viva prep I had about 8 weeks between submitting the thesis and my viva. I didn't look at my thesis until 3 weeks before. This gave me a much needed break and time to think about other stuff. From t-minus 3 weeks, I read through each chapter and made notes - I made a summary of each one, looked for new research, thought about potential ...