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Tag: mentorship

More advising advice: do you need a kind word or a kick in the pants?

More advising advice: do you need a kind word or a kick in the pants?

I’m not naive enough to pretend there are many readers here, but I’ve been keeping this public notebook of academic musings for awhile now, and every so often I get a letter in response. This one was from a PhD student who read my thoughts last month on mental health and the academy. It got me thinking about not-so-visible dividing lines. These plagued me when I made the decision to go to graduate school and embark on a PhD. It…

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4 points on the compass: a brief mental health orientation for PhD students (and others!)

4 points on the compass: a brief mental health orientation for PhD students (and others!)

Since I won’t be hosting a session on mental health and the academy at this year’s Swiss Geosciences Meeting, I thought I would sketch out here the ideas that I was planning to share. These are 4 basic principles that helped me when I was going through some emotional challenges during my PhD. Some of them are adapted from the University of Zurich’s excellent Stress Management course, and others were honed over time in conversation with other graduate students and…

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