I recently attended a defense in Denmark, as one of my cosupervised PhD candidates defended. I wanted to travel to be present in person, but my passport renewal is taking forever, so I joined through Zoom instead. For this particular…
Based on my PhD Talk for AcademicTransfer from January on supervising MSc students in the Netherlands, I received further insight on how this works at other universities, such as in Groningen, and I realized that how we do things in…
Right after Christmas, my university in Ecuador got hit by a cyberattack. The attack happened on the last day we could upload our grades. The impact of this attack has been very large. First of all, we had to postpone…
I asked ChatGPT how I can reduce my workload as a professor, and I have Some Opinions on that. Here's what AI recommended me (in italic), and what I think about that (regular). As a professor, reducing your workload can…
I recently got a question on what I do for my mental health. In general, I've had my share of health issues, in particular the migraines and thyroid problems. Some of the symptoms of thyroid disease are very similar to…
This post is part of the series PhD Talk for AcademicTransfer: posts written for the Dutch academic career network AcademicTransfer, your go-to resource for all research positions in the Netherlands. These posts are sponsored by AcademicTransfer, and tailored to those…
My work days have hanged since the days of my PhD. First of all, there is the overall structure of my days that is different. I tend to get a bit of an earlier start when I am in Ecuador…
I have the habit of tracking my time at work, to know how I divide my time between my different projects and responsibilities. Tracking all my time, however, is something I only do sporadically. My most recent detailed timelog is…
I took time off this year between Christmas and New Year's Day (and a few days into 2023 as well). My plans for the days between Christmas and New Year included: organize all the rooms in our houseget last work…
Just like I wrote about some mistakes to avoid during the literature review, today I'm listing some of the most common pitfalls for PhD candidates. Here are nine common mistakes you should try to avoid: Not having a (clear) research…
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