Walking the Line Between Being Inspired, Demoralised and Bored

Postgraduate training courses can be simply categorised on the basis of four either/or questions. The answers to these questions allow any PhD student to determine A) whether a particular course is going to be of any use or just a collassal waste of time, and B) What mood you will arrive back at your desk in when it's over.

1. Is the course provided at University level or by your own Department?
2. Is the course topic referring to general life skills or specific/technical skills?
3. Is the course trying to make you employable anywhere or improve your chance of an academic career?
4. Is the course compulsory or voluntary?

A noticeable trend quickly reveals itself after attending one or two of these courses. If it is A) provided by the university, B) on a generic life skill, C) trying to make you employable, and, D) compulsory then you can safely conclude that you're about to lose 2hours/a day of your life and you'll never get it back. There will be enforced group tasks and 'class' interaction which will be wonderfully awkward as you're a PhD student! You work primarily alone and if you do interact with other PhDs they will be within your same discipline. Because of this a portion of the session will involve 'Introductions', the inevitable sticky label name-tag and a complete lack of group cohesion. The only thing you will take gain from this course is boredom and a perfectly formed doodle.

The upshot of "those" kinds of training course? You feel positively chipper about your career prospects, everything they said was so painfully obvious that you feel assured that you're ready for life in the real world. You can rush back to your desk or the lab, get on with your thesis and forget about it for a few more years. Hooray!!! You haven't learnt anything but you feel great about it!!!

Then we come to the flip side of the training coin.... If a course is A) provided by the department, B) specific and/or technical, C) focussed on progressing your academic career, and, D) voluntary then you're in for a whole different experience. It's 'in-house' so you're likely to know everyone, there'll be some jokes, a few laughs, someone might even bring cake! A friendly face from the lecturing staff will impart great wisdom to you and you'll lap up every word, making notes and reflecting on what they're saying. The course will end, you'll pause for a moment, thinking to yourself what a really valuable use of your time that was and then....

BAM!

I had one of these moments today. An Introduction to Academic Writing. Completely Voluntary. In the department. Really detailed, really useful advice. I was just pondering how much I'd gotten from those 2 hours and then BAM! I started to realise that the really useful system she talked about was far superior to what I've been doing. I realised just how much work I'd been making for myself and now how much work was going to be required to fix the mess I'd made of my chapters. I haven't even started an academic paper yet and you're telling me I need to publish before my viva....BAM BAM BAM BAM one after the other. Then you realise your brain is oozing our your ears and you don't want to be back at your desk, but in a dark room, with a duvet, a jar of nutella and a spoon...

Forewarned is forearmed. The compulsory University level courses are unavoidable, but go prepared with a good amount of doodle material or a few academic papers to read on the sly. If you're brave enough to sign up to a voluntary 'in-house' course....have a large bar of chocolate ready and waiting on your desk when you get back!

Ciao for now!