Great! This is exactly what I attempt to do around here :]
Launched in a blog-form in early-2013 as a way of processing out loud and connecting with fellow (very) early stage career researchers, sharing struggles & successes of academia, as well as exploring workflows and tools that might be useful in research.
Is this for you?
If you are wondering what it’s like to do a PhD or are currently doing one and are feeling a bit lonely this is a place for you - you are not alone in this mess!
Or maybe you are interested in learning about tools that could help you deal with huge amount of data and information you are surrounded by? Do you like trying new software, tweaking your workflow and optimising things?
Last, but not least, maybe you need a pick-me-up in the form of some awesome wildlife? Like those cute kookaburras?
What can you expect to find here, you wonder?
- General work updates, showing what my PhDing actually involves (statistical modeling in R, literature, writing, fieldwork). The day-to-day PhD work is not particularly glamorous, but I like it most of the time. It can be frustrating, but solving problems is also very rewarding. I sometimes spend a whole week troubleshooting, so I am thinking of trying to do those every other week.
- Short posts about Australian wildlife, birds in particular, as part of my in-between fieldwork series. I try to utilise the downtime during my fieldwork and learn more about Oz wildlife. I think it’s also important to show that even when it seems like there is no time to do anything outside of work one should at least try. I will share photos of beautiful Australian critters with you every other week.
- Posts on workflows, habits, tools (like this one). I’d like to share some of my code with you too. I learn something new pretty much every time I code! I work mainly in R and write in Scrivener, formatting in LaTeX, but I’m also starting to dabble in other things e.g. I’ve build this website.
- Updates on “big events”, such as conferences, workshops and courses, as well as PhD milestones.
Who am I then?
My name is Gabriela K Hajduk, I’m currently based in Edinburgh, UK. I work as a PhD researcher at the University of Edinburgh, investigating the dynamics of inbreeding and infidelity in an Australian passerine bird, the cooperatively breeding superb fairy-wren. I have strong links to the Australian National University in Canberra, where I also carry out my PhD fieldwork during the Australian spring. For more information check out the Academic Bio and Research pages.
I’m outdoorsy, a keen rock climber and I love birds (I have a particularly soft spot for parrots). As you can imagine fieldwork in Australia is right up my street. I enjoy learning new things - you can see my attempts at wildlife photography in my in-between fieldwork series, I have also recently started to learn watercolour painting and I’m developing my coding skills (this website is actually one of my projects).
I started blogging mid-way through my final BSc year at the University of Sheffield. I wanted to share my journey through what I hoped were early stages of a scientific career. The blog has been morphing continuously ever since, through my Animal Behaviour MBiolSci and ongoing Evolutionary Ecology PhD journey, and was migrated to the current website in mid-2016. With this migration I’m hoping to take the blogging to a new level and also to create a place with resources useful to fellow early career researchers.
Like what you see? Get in touch!
I’d love it if you said hello, so feel free to email me or hit me up on Twitter. I tweet about new blog posts, so if you want to stay up to date follow me there :]