I have been writing blog entries under this blog for many months. The aim was to give insight into issues faced by students during a PhD. I am hopeful that some of the entries may have been useful to some of you considering starting a PhD or in the middle of a PhD.

Jobs.ac.uk is now looking for some one to replace me and contribute to the blog with the general theme of a life of a PhD student. If you are passionate about passing on helpful information or like to write about your experiences, you may contact careers@jobs.ac.uk. The entries do not have to restricted to PhD. They may examine wider topics such as job search, academia, research etc. The main aim is that the reader may be able to get something useful regarding PhD and related issues. Although some of my entries were related to my research subject, the entries should be general enough so that a person from outside the subject may also find it interesting or useful.

Many of the graduate students are also interested in examining different career paths after their degrees. It will also be useful if you consider writing about different career options which you may come across because of your research or conversations with others. You can discuss all of this and more in your email to careers@jobs.ac.uk. They may ask you to write a sample blog entry just to get an idea of what to expect from you.

Thank you and happy blogging!

Project management does not always paint an exciting picture what with different Gantt charts and budget sheets. Recently, I was struck by some interesting quotes by Scott Berkun. Berkun is of the view that “Everything is a project“. And in case people (like me) say that but project management is not exciting, Burken has a ready answer: “project management is as boring as the thing being managed”.

Although I don’t entirely agree with the second part but Burken is definitely right that everything is a project and that project management does not have to be seen in a very restrictive way. For example, Burken observes that athletes manage a project everyday. There is no question that athletes don’t just do their thing in the field. They need to take care of strategies, training schedules, performance trends of their adversaries, traveling itineraries, budgets, financial issues etc.

Similarly, a PhD is not about just showing up at the department every day and doing some thinking. There are daily goals such as looking up a certain reference, meeting a relevant researcher or updating your collaborator. There are short term goals such as mini surveys, paper deadlines etc. And of course there is the long term goal of the thesis which is effectively writing and editing your own book. There may be bottle necks in the way such as you not knowing a certain technique to solve a problem. Extra effort is then needed to equip your self with new techniques.

There are many other non-academic things which need to taken care for example funding. One may have to write regular progress reports to one’s funding agencies. These updates need to be approved or signed by your advisor well before he/she leaves for the Christmas break. If one is running out of funding, new grant applications have to be made and these require a systematic and orderly approach. Similarly, conferences and travel schedules need to be planned properly. This can only be done with some idea of project management even if an Excel sheet is not being managed every day.