PhD Coaching Blog — Coaching

Happy 2024! Registration has now closed on my small group coaching sessions to produce a "Good Enough" thesis, that will give students a good start in this New Year: https://www.phdcoaching.ca/pages/upcoming-thesis-workshop However, I know that many doctoral candidates don't want to join a group and prefer individual coaching. I completely understand, and there are many benefits to one-on-one sessions. The main advantage is that the entire focus is on your own thesis.  Whether you need help with your writing, or want to discuss what your supervisor said to you in margin comments, the discussion is just about your own work. It's...

      Expecting to be dawdling over your thesis in 2024?   To help you avoid that, I invite to join me for a four-week series of tutorials on how to write a “Good Enough” thesis, starting January 25th. Why?  Well, did you know that the average thesis takes eight years to complete? I’m sure I’m not the only one who thinks that PhD programs are excessively long and that doctoral students take too much time. In spite of the best of intentions, too many find themselves failing to reach the end of their studies, and there are probably several...

  Few things  test endurance more than working on a doctoral thesis.  This is a “self-portrait” that one of my clients sent to me to share with anyone who’s in the same boat as she is. Do you recognize yourself? This client has been working on her research topic for a long time.  In fact, she’s written a book, and is a practitioner in her area of expertise as well. But it’s taking a long time to get the thesis written, and from time to time she gets weary, as you can tell. We often talk about the need to...

One of the things I love to do is to bring my coaching clients together in small groups to chat and exchange advice on Zoom.  But in the free drop-in today it was a special treat to spend time with a candidate who had graduated a last month, and was happy to share his experiences.  One issue that he emphasized was the choice of supervisor.  As all doctoral candidates know, the supervisor has the power to approve your thesis and move you on to your oral defense (or Viva if you're in the UK), So having a supervisor who is interested...

As my doctoral candidates will know, I have a Kiwi upside down map on my wall and it's something that appears in all my Zoom calls.  But that's a flat map.  This globe adds more dimensions and it has a message for doctoral candidates. (Scroll down to see where this is!).  Your doctoral journey may have seemed simple enough at the beginning...a straight line from acceptance into the program to graduation!  However the world can turn and throw you off balance. What you thought was up is now down. Your perspective has changed.  So if you want to chat about...