Hello from me for the final time!

This is officially my last post as the SGSAH blogger #SINGLETEAREMOJI. Since I’ve been pestering various PhD students for their reflections on their internships, residencies and funded projects for the last six months, I thought I’d pester myself to share some of my own thoughts on the blogger-in-residence position.

So primarily, I would say I was in this to work on my Photoshop skillz, and I think we can all agree, things have improved vastly over the last six months.

I was also keen to wax lyrical on the day to day life of an average PhD student, including all the really boring bits about just sitting at your desk for hours wondering “why am I here? Where am I going? How long is too long to spend playing online Boggle?” And to be honest, this ended up being the most difficult bit…it ain’t easy to wring out a blog on your process every week, when every week is basically the same pattern of getting up and sitting down at a computer. But that was mostly down to a lack of planning on my part – I should have foreseen the looming thesis workload that kept me away from doing actual fun PhD stuff and arranged a better schedule around it.

Luckily for me though there were SO MANY incredible guest bloggers who were willing to share their adventures and insights as PhD students around Scotland. It’s been a privilege to interact with different people and read their stories firsthand, and I shall be forever grateful that no one ever got (visibly) annoyed when they received ten emails from me in one day “just making sure” everything was okay after I’d done any editing.

We’re part of a very special community and it’s extremely heartening to see so many people that are passionate about the research they’re doing. Life outside the PhD bubble is pretty alarming right now, and it can be difficult to turn away from the terrifying and ever-changing face of world politics. But hopefully the SGSAH blog provides a little corner of relief from that, where we can celebrate our diversity, read stories from students both British and International, and remember that our research, however broad or narrow its scope, is changing the world for the better.

And on that note…best of luck to the new blogger-in-residence, Lucie Whitmore! And to the new blogger-in-residence’s-dog, Birdie! (Chumbo has some top tips on how to really ruin your blogger’s train of thought, if you need them…

Peace and love x

Oh P.S! Here’s the SGSAH swan logo I dreamt all those months ago…