Starting Your PhD (Arts, Humanities & Social Sciences)

Starting your PhD might fill you with a range of emotions: from excitement at the thought of the intellectual pursuit, to trepidation of where to actually begin.

Why this course might make a difference
By complementing your departmental and supervisor support, the overall purpose of this intensive course for first-year students is to help you make the best possible start to your PhD that you can. Using practical exercises to clarify your thinking, the course explores three essential questions to achieve this purpose: the ‘Why?’ the ‘What?’ and the ‘How?’ of the PhD.

Outcomes:
Within the overall purpose, the course outcomes include:

• Knowing broadly what’s involved in doing a PhD, and what a PhD is.
• Having a definition of ‘Research’ that enables you to be effective.
• Knowing how to plan, so that you can adapt to the inevitable changes in your research project.

Feedback from 2016-17:

"After the reality of being a PhD student has set in, and the many details to attend to, it was a timely event to refocus on the broader overarching questions of what, why and how."

"I now have a broad understanding on where to start.“

First-year PhD students in the Arts, Humanities & Social Sciences.
Further details regarding eligibility criteria are available here.

Participative workshop including provision of information, discussion and practical exercises.

Three-hour session (including coffee break).

This course runs twice in Michaelmas term and once in Lent term.