A couple of months ago I was having my occasional freak out about what I’m doing with my life and what on earth I should be doing with myself after my PhD contract ends. It’s terrifying because academia just doens’t sound particularly appealing with all the bad press it’s getting these days; chances of making […]
Questions I had when I started supervising student projects
Supervising student projects has been one of the most rewarding but also one of the hardest things I’ve done during my PhD. It was hard, because I had no previous experience and little guidance. There is this general sense in (Dutch) academia that you just gotta figure it out. Perhaps not the most effective approach, […]
The early life of little mangroves
Dreaming of the days when I could still do fieldwork, I find myself making up stories about mangroves seedlings bravely trying to establish in a brutal world. The early life of Kandelia obovata trees starts out quite fun. At least, I think so. The Kandelia seeds germinate when they’re still on their parent tree, so […]
From data to draft: my messy pre-writing process
Although people often think I am very organised, my writing process is complete chaos, and it doesn’t at all match the neat, stepwise process writing is often presented to be. In the spirit of academic writing month, and also in the spirit of me currently drafting up three papers (at the same time… see? chaos!), […]
5 things I learned from PhDing in China
My home institution is in the Netherlands, but since we don’t have mangroves back home I spend quite some time in China to run experiments and field campaigns. When I’m here, I work on a campus in Zhuhai, a “small” city located close to Hong Kong and Macao. Right now I’m here for two months […]
The ten most popular mangrove species
There are over 70 true mangrove species in the world, but I have read a lot more about some than others. I was curious if that’s because I’m focusing mainly on species common in the Pearl River Delta (south China), or because some species just get more attention than others. So I thought, let’s figure […]
Ongoing list of PhD resources I like
I am a big sucker for productivity and love finding tools to get thing done better and quicker. So when I feel like taking a break from my research work or straight out want to procrastinate, I often find myself browsing the web looking for tools to improve my writing, R code, or some advice […]
What I’m learning about mangrove forests
Photo by Maxwell Ridgeway on Unsplash I’ve been wanting to write about my new research topic for a while, but it turns out it’s surprisingly hard! I didn’t want to just rehash Wikipedia. Anyway, today I want to give it a try. So dear reader, please let me introduce you to the wonderful world of […]
Grasp that topic! Getting started with a new area of research
When I started my PhD – about three months ago – I found myself having to learn the ins and outs of a whole new topic. Really fun, as I love learning new things, but also kind of like being shipwrecked and floating in the middle of the ocean with no idea which way to […]
Writing your thesis with R Markdown (5) – The thesis layout
This is the fifth and last post in a short series of tutorials to write your thesis in R Markdown. You can find instructions on how to get started in the first post. These tutorials were written by a Windows user, so if you are using a different operating system some details may differ. Hi […]