#Academia is my happy place and I feel incredibly lucky to be doing this now, even if I'm running a little late for a career change.

I've grown more in 8 months here, in my little 1970's crumbling corner of the academy, than in 25 years of commercial work. It's like being planted in compost. I've made more new friends, I've gained confidence, I have developed - for the first time - self esteem. I love networking for crying out loud, and I used to shrink to the walls and hide!

I only wish I'd had my #adhd diagnosis 30 years ago when I got kicked out of school and struggled through 9 (!) unfinished FE college courses.

And I now get 30% student discount off my glasses, so that's cool too :)

Hello! still trying to figure out how to use Mastodon, what kind of things post about etc.

What can I help with?

I’m doing a PhD without an academic background, so have had to build up my knowledge management system and study skills from scratch (and I know a thing or three about economic barriers & imposter syndrome). Happy to share my learning with any other PhD newbies (or greybeards!).

Practice research is a tricky beast and I’m helping to chair our university research group, where we’re trying to define frameworks and a language that can be understood between artists and more ‘canonical’ or empirical researchers, to build trust and support.

I also have ADHD and was recently diagnosed, which makes PhD study both incredible and difficult in equal measure. Happy to chat to anyone grappling with ND in academia.

#academia #phdlife #PhD #adhd #PracticeResearch

Loving mastodon so far: warm, communal & refreshingly non-stressful.

But ditching the bird site is severely depriving me of the ability to gripe about our shitty privatised monopolies, or to @ them in to my rage as impotent, performative catharsis. #capitalism and #tyneandwearmetro #sucksdonkeyballs

What's an alternative to the word ‘crises’ to describe a series of massive realisations and inflection points in the development of a thesis/methodology.

Talking about the dialectic between creative/critical elements of a thesis for my AP, and how the methodology has been defined by a series of ‘crises’ in my own understanding - i.e. being unable to proceed and having to overcome significant roadblocks to understanding. But not sure if it’s the right word. (And don’t want to admit to my panel that my research is mostly led by me being in crisis :))

#academia #phdlife