Day in the life of a PhD student: as told through PhD comics

by e_e_evans PhD student

Are you sitting comfortably? Then we’ll begin…

To do my bit to slow climate change caused by anthropogenic carbon dioxide I have been cycling to the department on dry days. However, you have to get there early otherwise:

Then it’s off to the office:

In answer to the above: the X-ray imaging lab, not something I’m going to share on the internet, Engineering (2nd supervisor), Geography (1st supervisor), Tephra Group, Geography dept., I don’t take classes, geology and yeah, I’m all over the place.

In the corner of the office exists something not too dis-similar to this, only with more outdoor coats thrown into the mix:

After checking emails and doing some reading it’s off to the lab. When I get there I like to check on the fish tank:

(This is incorrect, we actually don’t have any fish left, they died so now all we have are shrimp, hermit crabs and water snails).

Recently I’ve been getting trained up on the X-ray tomography:

In truth it’s been fun learning how to use the equipment, it certainly teaches you patience!

Speaking of lab equipment, we might give names to the fish tank residence (such as Hermit Crab, other Hermit Crab, Big Snail etc etc) but we don’t go this far:

 

Sometimes I have demonstrating where I help in practical classes:

During demonstrating it usually falls into the blue and red categories as to why we wear lab coats. It’s never too cold in the practical labs… quite to opposite. 60 plus students in a confined space for two lots of 2 hours will do that.

At the moment writing my literature review feels a bit like this:

(500 words a day and I’ll have a draft by Christmas… current count: 448, woops)

I’ve yet to experience academic auto-pilot… but give me time!

At the end of to day some networking is required and I vainly attempt to do some Science Communication:

I did say “attempt”!

E

Bonus round: