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User avatar
By Cartertonian
#14607656
So I've finally packed in my part-time EdD and started a (nominally) full-time PhD. As the great sage and luminary Potemkin prophesied, my first day comprised of nothing more than picking up my library card/ID...and then being left to my own devices. To say I was underwhelmed is an understatement.

I rode over from Northumbria University's city centre campus to the campus where I'm based, just to recce the 'PGR Hub', but that was no less underwhelming...just a room full of computers and a load of other PGR students who looked at me like I was something the cat dragged in, so I walked out again and rode home.

Of course, the fact that my supervisor is in the US on a lecture tour may have had something to do with my lack of welcome. I can see me spending quite a lot of time in my study at home, rather than trailing all the way up to Newcastle. My supervisor lives close to me anyway, so maybe we'll just do our supervision in the pub?
#14607937
Thanks killim. I reviewed my Mickey Mouse proposal yesterday and realised the enormity of what I have to produce by 1 Jan 16, in the shape of a full, methodologically explicit, deeply researched proper proposal!
User avatar
By Potemkin
#14607944
So I've finally packed in my part-time EdD and started a (nominally) full-time PhD. As the great sage and luminary Potemkin prophesied, my first day comprised of nothing more than picking up my library card/ID...and then being left to my own devices. To say I was underwhelmed is an understatement.

I rode over from Northumbria University's city centre campus to the campus where I'm based, just to recce the 'PGR Hub', but that was no less underwhelming...just a room full of computers and a load of other PGR students who looked at me like I was something the cat dragged in, so I walked out again and rode home.

Welcome to the club, Cartertonian.

When I did my PhD at Edinburgh Uni, they gave me my library card and access to JStor, and then steadfastly ignored my existence for the next four years....

Of course, the fact that my supervisor is in the US on a lecture tour may have had something to do with my lack of welcome. I can see me spending quite a lot of time in my study at home, rather than trailing all the way up to Newcastle. My supervisor lives close to me anyway, so maybe we'll just do our supervision in the pub?

Sounds like an excellent idea!

I did about 90-95% of the work on my PhD at home. If you have a PC and an internet connection at home, you should be able to download JStor articles, print them off and read them without going near the Uni. You'll need to familiarise yourself with the Uni Library though - you'll need access to more books than you could possibly buy. You should expect to have to read hundreds of books on your chosen topic and download up to a thousand or more published articles over the three or four years of your PhD. You won't know which books or articles these will be until you start reading.... Oh, and forget everything you think you know about your chosen topic of research - you'll quickly discover that everything you thought you knew about it is utter garbage and you have to start again from scratch. The sooner you accept that, the better it'll be for you. Good luck!
#14607945
Sphinx wrote:PhD in what?



Damn, but I keep getting asked that question...

The technical answer is 'Health & Life Sciences' but only because that's the Faculty I'm working in. The actual subject is looking at the experiences of Armed Forces families, using a narrative enquiry approach.
#14607947
So what's your PhD going to be in... ?



I'm sorry you felt like a stranger at the library. I grew up with LeVar Burton telling me that the library (even a campus one) is a magical place where your wildest dreams take shape. Little do you know, when you actually go there, plenty of surfaces are grimy, books are not only worn but suspiciously brown in various corners, and many have a noticeable odor.
#14607951
Fortunately or unfortunately, given that PhDs are supposed to add new knowledge to the academic field, I suspect there will be very few dusty tomes in the library that will cover my subject area. I will, however, be including any I find in my extended lit review for historical context.

The library I do want renewed access to is the library at the Defence Academy because that will have a lot of stuff of very great relevance. When I was doing my first masters I also happened to have regular, legitimate access to that library and it was a gold-mine, but I may struggle to get access as a humble reservist.
#14607955
Technically, we live in County Durham...by about two hundred yards! Takes an hour to get up to Newcastle, but my supervisor lives about ten miles from me so I anticipate a lot of 'remote working' He's also an old friend of mine and my go to bloke for helping fix me land rover
User avatar
By JohnRawls
#14607966
Congrats Cart,

No small undertaking, let the coffee cup be strong and the brain nimble

There are many databases that can be accessed online, you just need to find ways to do it from home. Usually they are linked to internal Uni networks.
#14607975
I flew from the far side of the US and arrived in Dublin. I got on the train to Cork, couldn't resist talking to the blonde on the train, carried her bags to her to a hostel, and we took a room. She was there to do touristy stuff, but I was there to do my MPhil, which would be followed by my PhD.

I went to campus, did some paperwork things, and then met my advisor. He was Irish, but had been living in a quite proper British neighborhood since he was a little kid, so he had something of a BBC accent. Almost Oxford, but not quite.

Anyway, you couldn't have found a more curt welcome wagon than his office and stifled emotional presence.

"What do I do now?" I asked.

"You'd better figure that out," He said.

I actually was a mediocre undergraduate student, but I excelled in graduate school. I loved working in that environment.

And I hated explaining what my MPhil or PhD was in. It was really hard to explain to laymen, and then it was really arrogant sounding to say something like, "Oh, it's so focussed you'll have never heard of it," or something like that.

I eventually came to just say, "Moderate paramilitary nationalism in Ireland from 1890-1918." It had the academic tone people wanted to hear about, it was sufficiently descriptive to be roughly (if inadequately) true, and people could sort of grasp what it means. But it took me years of trying to come to an elegant enough descriptor.
#14607981
TIG wrote:"What do I do now?" I asked.

"You'd better figure that out," He said.

That's about the size of it! Mind you, I suppose there's an expectation that by the time you get to PhD you already know what you're supposed to do...you just need the space and resources to do it.
User avatar
By Ummon
#14608339
Cartertonian wrote:So I've finally packed in my part-time EdD and started a (nominally) full-time PhD. As the great sage and luminary Potemkin prophesied, my first day comprised of nothing more than picking up my library card/ID...and then being left to my own devices. To say I was underwhelmed is an understatement.

I rode over from Northumbria University's city centre campus to the campus where I'm based, just to recce the 'PGR Hub', but that was no less underwhelming...just a room full of computers and a load of other PGR students who looked at me like I was something the cat dragged in, so I walked out again and rode home.

Of course, the fact that my supervisor is in the US on a lecture tour may have had something to do with my lack of welcome. I can see me spending quite a lot of time in my study at home, rather than trailing all the way up to Newcastle. My supervisor lives close to me anyway, so maybe we'll just do our supervision in the pub?


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