The last couple of weeks I had lots of talks with PhD students. The thing that struck me the most was that PhD students don’t talk. Yes, they talk to me, because I am an outsider and not too scary and I know so much about the process of getting…
Whenever I see Donald Trump on TV I wonder if he ever doubts himself. Then I noticed a newspaper article about his nocturnal tweets to rectify his controversial statements about former Miss Universe Alicia Machado. Is the Donald insecure? I know that PhD students are, especially meetings with their supervisor…
Only a small part of what you are saying; the words or content is part of communication. Albert Mehrabian, the famous psychologist and Professor comes to the conclusion in his studies that there are three elements in any face-to-face communication; words, tone of voice and non-verbal behaviour. Words only account…
Communication is not always easy. Before you know it, there is confusion, misunderstanding of the other person’s reaction, frustration, in short: miscommunication. Some miscommunication now and then is not the end of the world, however too much of it might influence your relationships with the people surrounding you. Frequent miscommunication…
Are meetings with your supervisor difficult? Can’t you get the feedback you need? I wrote about that before, but recently I found some great questions in the book ‘How to get a PhD. A handbook for students and their supervisors’ by Philips and Pugh that can really improve your meetings…
A lot of PhD students complain about the meetings with their supervisor: they don’t get the feedback they need, they are overwhelmed by all the tips they are getting but don’t know how to use them, and they are getting lost because their research needs to go into a different…
