By Any Other Nerd

Estimated Reading Time: 3 minutes So after working for a number of years on my doctorate and working towards my dissertation , I'm happy to announce that my research study has been approved by UMASS Boston's IRB and my dissertation committee.   So now comes the fun part!  Finding folks interested in participating in the study!  You can learn more about  the study  here . Yet, there is a real challenge with my study in that I'm trying to reach scholars who are making use of certain networks (namely, SciHub, LibGen, ICanHazPDF, and r/Scholar).  Because engaging on these networks is often not discussed openly, it's really hard to find out who is using them and ask them to participate in this valuable study which explores their experience as scholars on such platforms. So if folks meet these criteria and are interested in contributing to a better understanding of research literature acquisition, please consider filling out  this consent form and intak...

Estimated Reading Time: 10 minutes So I recently mentioned that I'm getting back on track with my dissertation and so, since it's been about a month, I figured I'd give an update.  Overall--it's going well. I feel like I'm actually making progress. For oer a month now, I've managed to work 20-30 minutes each day, if not longer on other days. This is a great and consistent effort that allows me to see actual progress; something that I need.  So how have I been able to do it?  After a year of nearly faltering, I feel like I've turned the corner and am chipping away.  Here are some of things that have been working for me.  What I would suggest is that this is essentially a recipe. A grouping of habits that have helped me and "tastes" great to my palate.  You should certainly mix and match with what you think will work for you but also, maybe experiment a bit to figure out what's working. Sometimes, it's our own assumptions about what w...

Estimated Reading Time: 4.5 minutes So it's been well over a year since I wrote my last blog post regarding my PhD program .  However, if you've been reading it along, you'll notice that the PhD Chronicles last entry is dated to about seven months ago.  For those not in the know or not paying much attention (I don't blame you there), the entries for the chronicles were posted one year after I actually wrote them.  This gave me some distance and opportunity to revisit and revise in case I misrepresented something or someone.  Image Source: Martin Vorel But these posts moving forward are in the now (or as Spaceballs says "now now" ).  So what has been going on with my doctoral work in the year and a half since I posted that last post.  I would love to report back now and regal you with adventures about how I have made huge strides and succeeded in defending my dissertation proposal and am now working solely on my dissertation. But that is not the ca...

The Professor Is In: The Essential Guide To Turning Your Ph.D. Into a Job by Karen Kelsky My rating: 4 of 5 stars Kelsky's methodical and meticulous exploration of transitioning from a doctoral student into a professional in academia is a must-read for anyone (even in undergrad) thinking of pursuing a doctorate degree for the purpose of a university position. Her argument for the book is sound: competition for tenure-track is fierce and getting fiercer, nontenure-track positions are increasingly more exploitative, and without a serious means to economically exploit a doctoral degree will leave recent graduates with lots of debt and few opportunities. Her approach is a critical and non-sugarcoated romp through the nuts and bolts of making one marketable by being the utmost academic profession one can be by leveraging every single opportunity to network, earn CV-valuable credits, articulate value and experience, and leverage past opportunities into new ones. She...

You can't see me, but I'm dancing up a storm because the final Friday has come and gone for my cohort in the doctoral program and that's just AMAZING AND AWESOME AND ALLEVIATING AND ...and so many other feelings that don't begin with the letter A. I will not go into detail of every moment of the day but from the moment I got up to taking the bus to arriving on campus, classes, lunch, more classes, and celebratory drinks afterward--I just kept thinking about this being a powerful milestone to hit.  It felt like a great weight lifting off my shoulders...mostly.  I still have the final paper (a rough, rough, rough dissertation proposal) to produce but then I'm taking 2 months off from it all before diving back in. With classes at an end, I need to take a break.  I'm mentally and even physically wiped (the stress cycle has taken its toll on me and my body is in rougher shape than it has been in while).  The timing is also right to take a break as I need some dista...

I have three Fridays left.  THREE FRIDAYS.  That's a very exciting thought. It doesn't mean I'm done with the program or even done with classes per se, but I am done with Fridays.  Three years of Fridays along with three 3-week intensives during June.  In total, about 126 day-long visits to campus.  Now, only three.  And truth be told, getting to these classes is a serious challenge.   Source: Pete My motivation is quavering to show up.  I've felt it since I came back from Spring Break.  Each Friday morning, I feel the pull to stay home just a bit more intensely.   There's a part of me that wants to rationalize this.  Given where I am with my research and my plan to write a dissertation proposal, there's nothing of substance to showing up in these last three classes.  By the semester end, I need to produce a rough rough rough draft of my dissertation proposal but that's it.  I'll then be working away at ...

I like to write about demons. Maybe it's my overall fascination with horror, my experiences with religion, or great appreciation for Supernatural (to be clear--it's a bad show but I still enjoy it), but I find that when I need to explain something such as inner turmoil, I like to draw upon demons.  I wrote about the two demons I run with .  Today, I'm going to talk about the two demons of the doctorate.  My guess is that some of you are quite familiar with one and possibly familiar with the other.  Demon 1:  The Distraction Demon The doctorate program, like many other big tasks is dominated by output and deadlines.  There's papers to be done throughout the courses leading up to the dissertation process and then more deadlines, bigger and more stressful deadlines along the way.  I'm often challenged by deadlines.  I think Douglas Adams, in all the ways he has influenced me, maybe have influenced me most when I heard him say, "I love deadline...