Posts

Ecuador

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On January 14th, 2018, I made my first research trip to Ecuador for my PhD. I had been putting this post off for a while because I couldn't find the right words to describe just how much I enjoyed this trip! It started off with a pretty long journey from Amsterdam, stopping in Philadelphia and then Miami, finally arriving in Quito the next day. I travelled with Sarah, who is currently doing a Post Doc in our lab having just finished her PhD. Although I was quite jet lagged and groggy from the flight, my excitement persisted, taking everything in like a sponge. We spent the first few days in CumbayĆ”, which was just outside of Quito close to Universidad de San Fransisco de Quito. We had the pleasure of visiting the university as well and, I was jealous. A lovely, green and spacious campus, with excellent facilities. They had a large pond in the middle of their campus! I was very excited about that. After spending two days in Cumbaya, it was time to make the long trip dow

My first two months

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A lot of people have asked me what it's like to start a PhD and whether I still love what I do (because that's basically my full time job now). That led me to writing this post, I just wanted to give my experience of what it's like in the first couple of months. I officially started on the 25th of September 2017, but I was already spending most of my summer reading all about my subject and coming up with ideas. When you're crazy about your subject, you will just want to immerse yourself in it every second of the day! So when I 'officially' started it didn't feel like I had just because I spent all summer being too excited. Nevertheless, it was completely different to doing a bachelors or masters because you don't have set hours of lectures anymore. You are your own boss essentially, in the way that you decide your hours and how you are going to do everything. Your supervisors are there of course, but the point of a PhD is to do independent research.

Welcome to my blog!

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