Heather Doran

My PhD has been printed off, handed in, examined, corrected, printed off again in hardbound form, signed off, handed back in and I have graduated. AT LAST!!! This is my last post about the PhD (I think!) and goes through some coping mechanisms I developed at the end when I was juggling finishing off with a full time job... Me and my younger sister at my graduation The end of the PhD was hard work. It's a long, time consuming process that I have mentioned previously . I'm currently working as a project officer in public engagement with research, my job involves evenings, weekends and general odd hours. Juggling both the job and the PhD was a bit tricky at times, but just about manageable. I had to allocate work, PhD and free time effectively and stop doing a number of things that I enjoy. I haven't spoken to friends or family as much as I wanted to. Finding time to write blogs that required research was tricky as I just didn't have the time. There were a numb

Just so you are aware, there is a conversation happening on the Nature Soapbox Blogs website and on twitter hashtag #phdelta about the PhD process and if it needs changing. There are lots of reflections, thoughts and comments coming into the debate. I have written a post about science communication and the PhD and this has sparked the question, should science communication activities be compulsory in a PhD? You can read it here . Also, I spotted this fab post about why blogging during the PhD is good and how to get started :-) Join twitter. If you need help getting started with twitter, this might be useful !

*warning* this is a self-indulgent blog post. I am suffering from a large bout of PhD thesis 'tunnel vision'. All I can think about at the moment is the massive amount of work I have to do in such a short space of time. When you have three years of work, a computer full of data and a head full of thoughts and ideas... where do you start? The worry of unemployment also likes to creep in... I don't have a job lined up for when I finish (yet, but there are some things in the pipeline). My aim is to be mostly finished by October. My last payment from my PhD will be in August. My brain starts panicking about all of these things at random times throughout the day, and then I can't get anything done. It took me ages to get writing. I had a plan, but I still found it completely overwhelming.  I'm usually someone that forms a plan quickly and then gets going and I wasn't. So I started getting stressed about that. The hard work has been done already. I know I h

Obscure bad-science stories (of the  'Wine, gives you cancer but makes you thin' variety) seem relatively thin on the ground at the minute. There are some lurking, but they are mostly playing second fiddle in the health sections to the very important NHS reforms and to 'Andrew Wakefield sues the BMJ'. Maybe I haven't been looking closely enough, or I am starting to shut out the noise. There hasn't been anything that has stirred the fury in me enough to blog about it. Or, and this might be the bigger reason... I am being distracted by something else...

I have been talking to friends and others about careers in science. This started me wondering about a science career. The vast majority of people I have spoken to have had to move for postdocs and jobs. Do you have to be a nomad for a few years before you can 'settle' (and even then you might be required to uproot yourself and move at the drop of a hat) to have a career in science? Is the only way to get a 'good' career to be prepared to go wherever the wind takes you? And how many other careers require that kind of flexibility? Is it unusual? To have a good career in anything do you need to be prepared do down tools and move on (but is it 'unusual' in other careers, whereas in science it is more the norm)? I am not talking about 6/8 months away at a time. I am talking years. If it is, this sounds like a perfect career for me. I love change. I thrive off it. I love meeting new people and seeing different places (no matter where it is). But can I do it? I am in

Last week I attended the British Science Association, Science Communication Conference 2011. I was granted a bursary to attend, covering transport, accommodation and conference fees - which was nice, as without it I would not have been able to go! I was really looking forward to meeting people involved in science communication across the UK (& world) and some of the people I have spoken to through email & twitter. Creating networks when you are based so far away from the main source of the action can be difficult, social media does help enormously - but it still never beats meeting someone and having a conversation in person. The conference seemed the perfect opportunity to do this. So, off I went to London town with a bag full of Au magazines  to share. I was really pleasantly surprised to find that quite a number of people had already come across the magazine and were interested in the project. That made conversation easy! As I was at the conference on my own I had no option