PhD diary
A journey as a doctoral student between 2017 and 2020. I keep these posts because, looking back from my early days, I can see how much my perspectives have shifted as a reminder of the learning journey.
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Week 23
I had a meeting to receive feedback on my work. My supervisors pointed out a problem with the structure of my draft and gave me a lot of advice. As a result, I need to divide the literature review into two chapters and narrow the key theories to one point each. My supervisors have shown read more
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Week 22
I got behind my personal deadline for writing drafts. I was distressed about my incapability to deal with it, and I spent the whole week reading, writing and editing. I can describe my Week 22 as ‘a traffic jam’ caused by work I needed to do for the ethics applications, the research protocol, a chapter read more
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Week 21
My ethics applications are nearing completion. I had a meeting with my primary supervisor to get her feedback on my draft of the applications. I also have a meeting with an expert on research ethics next week. My goals for Week 22 complete the final version of my ethics applications structure one chapter expand read more
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Week 20
It was a little unusual that I slept more than 12 hours a day for four consecutive days this week. After waking up, I spent the day reading, writing and teaching, and I still felt sleepy. This made me feel stressed, like “What unproductive days! How stupid I am”. I concentrated on writing up my read more
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Week 19
I attended a session on Ethnography and found it very interesting and useful. My research includes fieldwork. Although I have been preparing for my field research, I didn’t have a precise vision for things such as the schedule, procedure, and lists of questions for interviews. The session gave me abundant information and instructions about fieldwork read more
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Week 18
The main event of week 18 was Luca’s birthday. I cooked lasagna and baked a chocolate birthday cake. We spent the whole day on Saturday having a luncheon party with his friends, going to watch WWE UK wrestling, and having drinks afterwards. To enjoy those birthday events, I managed to submit my work by Friday read more
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Week 17
Week 17 was busy with three seminars and extra reading. I need to finish writing another 2,000-word review of my reading. One of my supervisors allowed me to sit in on her module at medical school, which discussed the topic of end of life care. I observed the medical students’ consultations with older patients in read more
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Day off
On Saturday, I read a book on positive psychology, how to restore confidence and how to make myself motivated again. Following the instructions in the book, I made a list of my goals and top 10 priorities. My research eventually came out as the number one priority. I am feeling a little better. On Sunday, read more
