My Viva Experience

by Dr Sarah Robins-Hobden

While anticipating the Hive Doctoral Discussions event on Viva, we thought it's a good idea to re-post a brilliant piece written by Dr Sarah Robins-Hobden, Researcher Developer, Trainer, and Coach, on her own Viva. The piece was originally posted on the Doctoral School blog in 2010: https://doctoralschool.wordpress.com/2010/10/07/my-viva-experience. We find Sarah's notes and tips on her Viva experience priceless, so we'd like to share them with all of you who are preparing for their own Viva. Enjoy!

Notes on my viva

Just a note: I found my viva exam to be one of the most positive experiences of my doctorate.  If you’re looking for viva horror stories, you’ll need to go elsewhere, sorry.

Firing up

 

I had not been nervous really until the actual day of the viva.  Then it started to come on in the morning, building slowly, until early afternoon, when I started to feel drenched in fear.  Immediately before going in at 3pm, it was at its utter worst.  The viva took place in my internal examiners office, and as my Supervisor escorted me from the cafe, I felt I was walking the walk of doom.  I shook hands with my examiners, and sat at the table, in front of a small bottle of water with a plastic cup.

My internal examiner started off apologising for not having arranged tea.  He said that the viva would not be very long, and that it was unusual for a candidate to be told this in advance.  I wasn’t to read anything into this, the fixed duration of the viva being set by the train and plane times arranged for my external examiner.  We had two hours, and we kept up a good pace throughout the exam, and as it was, I felt I could have discussed some topics for longer, though I must say that I didn’t feel rushed or that we missed anything.

First gear

 

I was still exceedingly nervous at this point, and the first thing I was asked, was to talk for 10 to 15 minutes about the background to how my research came about, the journey that I took, and the highlights along the way.  I can sometimes waffle.  Really waffle.  Sometimes when the handbrake on my mouth is released, and after several metaphorical miles of talking, I can discover to my horror that my brain has been humming away in neutral for the entire journey.  I’m also blessed/cursed with self-awareness, so I *know* I sometimes do this, and I *know* how awful it is to find myself doing it.  So I worry about doing it, and become absurdly vigilant, often stopping mid-sentence and saying things like “ok, I should shut up now”, or “…erm, that didn’t answer your question, did it?”.  Despite all this, and after a very cautious start, I soon got into the rhythm of it, started to trust that my brain was firing on all cylinders, and found myself weaving a fairly coherent and competent narrative around the six experiments that form my thesis.  About 8 minutes in, I finally started to relax.  I realised I *did* know my work very well, that there was an interesting story to be told, and that they story was mine to tell.  And I started to realise that I had an audience of two avid listeners, who were hanging on to everything I said with genuine interest.  This had not happened to me before.

I don’t want to paint an impossibly rosy picture, so know this: that first question was the easiest.  I did not fully relax at any point during the 2 hours I was in there – but I think that must be right.  It is an exam.  The culmination of five years of my life: 3 of active research, and 2 of (on and off) writing.  You cannot relax if you stimulated, excited, alert and interested, and I was all of these.  Also, I was painfully aware that my thesis was not as tied up as it should have been.  For reasons I won’t go into here, I had run up tight against the wire with submission times, and some sections were mere vignettes rather than critical analysis.  I was fairly confident that my experimental methods and results were sound.  But I knew that the introductions and conclusions they were wrapped in were less so, and in some cases almost insubstantial. I was fully expecting what we commonly call “major corrections”, and praying not be offered an MPhil or failed outright.

Full throttle

 

We progressed through my thesis, stopping here and there so my examiners could question me further.  This wasn’t the page-by-page slow death I had previously imagined, and the questions seemed to fall into three loose categories:

1. To explore in depth or recap something I had written about
2. To establish something I had not written about, and perhaps should have
3. To consider the what-ifs of my research (especially as my conclusions and discussions were not very strong)

This seemingly meandering route through my thesis took me by surprise – a lot of  the sections I had made notes on, and the majority of what I thought were glaring holes in my critiques, methods or research, were skated over or not touched on at all.  A couple of points that I had previously thought quite minor, we explored in great depth, and I found myself doing some proper hard thinking.  There was one particular section that I knew was very thin, and I had been prepared to be grilled on it quite hard.  In the end, I was asked a couple of minor questions, and it was left at that.  It’s only now, with the benefit of hindsight that I can see that I wasn’t pushed on that section because it wasn’t central to my argument.  And the sections I was stretched on, were very central to my argument.  Sounds obvious now, doesn’t it?

Throughout the viva, I felt I was being asked to look at my work from other viewpoints, and it wasn’t always easy.  Some of the questions I had to ask to be rephrased because I didn’t understand them, and a couple I started answering and had to be stopped because I had grasped the wrong end of the stick and proceeded to beat myself over the head with it. In one cringe-inducing instance, my internal examiner had to paraphrase my mangled answer for me, so that the external examiner could understand my response, whilst I sat nodding dumbly.

Most of the time though, it did feel like a discussion, with the questions being prompts.  My examiners posed some interesting ideas that I hadn’t thought of myself, and many of which will be very useful when revisiting my thesis.  Getting another’s perspective on your own research is useful, talking to two interested senior academics about your research is valuable, and having that dialogue with the person who is at least the UK, if not world expert in your field (the external examiner), is priceless.  Perhaps it is because I felt like this – I saw my viva as an opportunity, and not as a trial – that I feel so positive about the experience, and got so much from it.

Rear-view Mirror

 

I think It helped, too, that there had been a 5-month gap between my thesis submission, and my viva – something that frustrated me a bit at the time.  This isn’t an unusual length of time, but it was enough that I was able to let go of my thesis for a while, and it helped me get a more objective stance on it (though of course you can never be completely objective about an x-thousand-word thesis that took three years to research).  I went and reintegrated myself into other aspects of my life for a while, and when I returned, I certainly found myself being less precious about my research, more open to new ideas, and more accepting of constructive criticism.  Above all, I realised I was ready to “kill my darlings”.  I doubt I would have felt this way in the first three months after submission.  All things need time to mellow, and I’m glad I had the time and space to do so.

Rejoining the highway

 

Back to the viva… Afterwards, I was asked to leave the room while the examiners decide upon their recommendation to the exam board.  They came to get me shortly afterwards (15 mins or so?) and we returned to the exam room.  The examiners wanted me to know that I had viva’d well – that I had given considered answers, that I had shown a good understanding of the strengths and weaknesses of my research and thesis, and how it might fit into the overall field.  Then they worked through the first three outcome categories allowed for on the Sussex form shown here:

First 3 viva outcomes at Sussex

Category a) is rarely awarded.  Both examiners said that they disagreed with the way the outcomes are worded – they could no recommend outcome b) because the amendments permitted under this category are specific, and my thesis needed more revision than that.  But they didn’t agree with category c) either – they felt that there was too great a gap between b) and c), and they both objected  to the use of the word “fail” that applies to category 3.  (As it happens, I believe Sussex is in the process of reviewing the wording on these forms, but the wheels move excruciatingly slowly in HEIs).  So, the recommendation from my examiners was to be outcome 3, but they agreed that I need not sit another viva, and that my internal examiner could approve the corrections.  This all sounds a bit flat when written down, but it was actually very encouraging, and my external said that there was “at least one, if not two papers” to be had from my thesis – and to this point I had thought there was none!  I was also advised that I should take some time to immerse myself back into the literature before diving in to make corrections – and I shall be heeding that advice closely.

Aftermath

 

Afterwards I felt elated, excited about my work, energised and re-motivated.  I also felt a little intellectually knackered.  You know that feeling your body gets the day after a hard workout when you’re not used to it?  That’s how my brain felt.  Good stuff. :)

Questions I remember being asked (as I best remember them, not word-for-word):

 

• Could you talk us through the background of how your research came about, and the journey you took, including some of the highlights you encountered along the way?
• Your literature review on SSS[1] starts with Prof A’s 1981 paper, and work on humans.  I wondered if you’d considered going back to earlier work with animals, such as that of Prof B, as it may be central to some of your later work on learning?
• There seems to be an absence of dissenting voices in your review – have you come across the argument that SSS does not exist, that the measurements might be a reflection of the wanting / liking dichotomy?  For example from Prof C, or Prof D?
• The bulk of your research relies upon a single dependent variable.  What is your reasoning behind that, and how might it affect your conclusions?
• You refer here to phenomena Y, could you expand on this please?
• On page xx you outline two opposing theories of Z – could you explain a bit more about how the theories contrast?
• Could you tell me how Flavour-flavour learning works?  Why, for instance, would a novel flavour become more liked after exposure with a sweet taste such as sugar?  And how would that be attributed to flavour, and not to energy learning?
• You make the assertion of hypothesis H1 here, and it looks like you base that on a single published paper.  Is there any other reason you might expect X to be the case?
• All your experiments use a fixed portions of food.  What made you decide on this method?  Can you think of any limitations using fixed portions might have had on your results?
• All your data is collected from VAS (visual analogue scales).  Can you think of any other measures that might have been appropriate to take?
• Experiment 1 presented some unexpected group differences at baseline – have you any thoughts on why this might be?
• In Experiment 2, your results show a significant linear contrast, and would probably show a significance for a quadratic contrast too.  But this relies on the way you have ordered your categorical experimental conditions. How was this ordering decided, and was that before or after you collected the data?
• Experiment 3 is underpowered – could you talk us through how this came about, and why you decided not to use some of the data?
• The effect you found in Experiment 2 is absent from Experiments 3 and 4 – do you have any thoughts on why this might be the case?
• You did an additional ANCOVA (analysis of covariance) on the data for experiment 4.  Do you think that conducting a similar analysis on experiments 2 and 3 might reveal some more answers?
• Did you collect this sort of data from participants at different time points in the experiment?  So you could go back and look at that to see if those data provide more answers?
• It is interesting that you used materials and methods in experiment 6 that worked well for other researchers, but didn’t provide you with the same effects in your work here.  What are your ideas on reasons for that?
• How might expectancy effects have interfered with your results in the final two experiments?
  What could be done to improve the design of this experiment?
• If you were to go back to the beginning of your research, what would you do differently?

[1] phenomenon that is the focus of my research

We would like to thank Dr Sarah Robins-Hobden for letting us re-post her blog post.

Tips for Organising a Postgraduate Conference

Fellow academics often claim that organising a conference is fun, looks good on your CV, and offers an excellent networking opportunity. Well, it’s certainly all of those things – but it’s also jolly hard work. Of course, anything involving people and technology is bound to be tricky. I’ve helped out with the Victorian Popular Fiction Association’s annual conference since it first started back in 2009, and last year I was on the organising committee of Sights and Frights, a one-day interdisciplinary event at the University of Sussex. In this post I share with you some of the lessons learned and insights gained. I’m not going to cover how you choose a theme or draft a call for papers – I’m assuming you already have a good idea of what you want your conference to look like and now need to get started on the practicalities.

Registration

If you want to attract delegates, which I assume you do, make the registration process as simple as possible. A basic online form is ideal, and you can set one up for free with a WordPress site or Google Forms. Don’t expect people to send paperwork through the post to you. None of us is that patient these days, and it’s a real pain for overseas delegates. Your university probably has a PayPal account you can use, and this is the most convenient method for everyone. If your budget is tight, then receiving payment upfront gives you a much better idea of the finances and you don’t have to menace people for money on the day. Make it clear on the registration form that delegates who cancel at the last minute won’t receive a refund.

On the registration form, be sure to ask delegates to specify whether they have any specific dietary or access requirements.

Catering

Most academics won’t have high expectations of university catering, but they’ll be grumpy if there’s not enough food. You might need to advise the caterers of numbers a few weeks in advance of the event, so keep a careful eye on late registrations and advise them accordingly. Also remember that some people will just turn up on the day, but still expect to be catered for.  There is likely to be a least a handful of delegates with allergies, so make sure their needs are noted. If a special meal is prepared for them, mark it with their name – sometimes unthinking souls will wolf down someone else’s vegan lunch just to see what it’s like. You might have to pay a premium for additional dietary requirements, so ask for a clear breakdown of what everything costs. It could be cheaper to pop to the local supermarket and buy some soya milk and gluten-free biscuits for the coffee break.

Oh, and keep an eye on your catering once it’s arrived. I once attended a conference where the host institution’s staff sneaked in and cleared all the platters while we were patiently waiting for the last paper to finish.

Timekeeping & scheduling

Who’s ever attended a conference that didn’t overrun? Not me. To prevent it from getting out of hand, make sure the panel chairs enforce the time limits. The most effective method I’ve used is to provide them with a laminated card – on one side it reads “5 minutes” left, on the other “Stop talking now!” It’s not very subtle, admittedly, but a few academics will just ramble on incontinently until somebody wrestles them to the ground.

Starting on time is also key. Appoint a committee member or friendly faculty member as MC (preferably one with the lungs of Ethel Merman) to summon everyone together for the opening remarks and keynote address. If this starts late, you’ve got absolutely no chance of recovering the time. And squeezing the coffee breaks is always an unpopular move. If you are overrunning, keep closing remarks to an absolute minimum – the audience will be worrying about catching planes and trains, and won’t give a stuff about your thoughts on interdisciplinarity.

Technology

Computers are designed to confound and it’s important to assume they will go wrong. If your conference is taking place at the weekend, remember that your university’s IT helpdesk might not be available. Ensure you have a resident geek who can quickly resolve any minor issues. If possible, encourage speakers to send their slides in advance – that way they won’t be thwarted by failed wi-fi connections, temperamental laptops, or forgetful memory sticks. Also ask them to specify any non-standard equipment required, such as microphones or speakers.

Arrive at the venue early and give yourself time to switch on all the computers and screens that’ll be in use during the day.

Delegates

Dealing with a large number of people in a confined space is challenging. It’s a good idea to recruit some volunteers to help you on the day, particularly with the registration desk. As a member of the organising committee, you’ll probably be busy dealing with speakers and possible emergencies (see below). Ensure that everyone knows their role and how to carry it out. Keep a list of useful contact numbers on the desk.

Delegates tend to arrive in one enormous clump around 15 minutes before the conference starts. Have a system in place to deal with them efficiently and also station some people there to deal with complicated enquiries. There’ll almost certainly be a few people who haven’t registered or did so just after midnight. Have blank name badges available, and make extra copies of the delegate packs.

Put signs around the building to guide delegates to the panel locations and toilets, and ensure room numbers are clearly marked on the conference programme.

Emergencies

It’s horrible when your carefully laid plans go awry. Unfortunately, speakers do pull out at the last moment – even keynotes – and there’s nothing that can be done. Sometimes they even have the temerity to explain they received a better offer. Anyway, don’t panic. If this happens, don’t be tempted to wheel in another speaker at the last minute. It’s much easier to simply extend the social breaks or finish earlier (remember that you’ll probably be overrunning, in any case). If a keynote is travelling a long distance, he or she could easily be delayed. In that case, do a quick rejig of the schedule – it’s not going to ruin anyone’s day if the conference doesn’t run in exactly the advertised order.

Hopefully I haven’t put you off. Organising a conference is an immensely rewarding experience and it helps develop many skills – not least of which is patience. Inevitably, things will go wrong, but it’s very unlikely that anything truly disastrous will happen. Let go of minor glitches and enjoy your day.

Catherine Pope gained her PhD from the University of Sussex last year. She is now a digital skills trainer and the author of books on Zotero, Evernote, and Scrivener. Find out more at The Digital Researcher (www.theDigitalResearcher.com).

REVIEW! Doctoral Discussions: Conferences and Networking

By Cassandra Wiener

The launch of the Sussex Hive Scholars’ new seminar series ‘Doctoral Discussions’ kicked off to a lively start last Friday with the inaugural session focusing on Conferences and Networking. Billed as ‘an exciting new series of peer led discussions on the things you need to succeed with research’ it was, actually, just that…

I arrived not at all sure what to expect – but was grateful to be greeted with a sandwich and some friendly reassurance from Lana Harper, (2^nd year English PhD student) Sussex Hive Scholar and our Chair for the session.  She introduced the afternoon’s three speakers: Michael Rowland (3rd year English PhD), speaking on ‘Giving a Conference Paper’; Elena Gorianova (2nd year Politics PhD), speaking on ‘Networking’ and Simon Davies (Postdoctoral Associate Tutor, English) speaking on ‘Organising a Conference’. I will run through the gist of each presentation – but if there are issues you are particularly interesting in, you might decide you would prefer to listen to the live recording of the event, which you can listen to here. If you have any questions, you can message the Research Hive scholars at researchhive@sussex.ac.uk.

Giving a Conference Paper

Conferences are something that we are all aware we need to engage with at some point, but the idea of presenting at one can strike fear into the heart of even the most confident early stage researcher.  Michael began by outlining his own experience – which was extensive – but his unassuming approach put us all immediately at ease. In fact, the best and most useful thing about this presentation, from my perspective, was that he answered all of the questions that I have never dared ask for fear that I should know the answer.  From the ‘standard’ length of a conference paper (twenty minutes), to whether or not you should read aloud (check with the conference organisers as different disciplines have different approaches), to how to ‘pitch’ your language (think about your audience’s background and experience): all of it was helpful.  Michael spoke for about ten minutes and then we had a number of lively debates and discussions; with everyone feeling able to chip in with detail from their own experiences, which gave the topic a helpfully multi-disciplinary dimension.

Networking

Elena spoke frankly about some of the difficulties generated by even a discussion on the topic of ‘networking’: clearly it is a necessary skill, and yet we are all – curiously? – ‘squeamish’ about the fact that we need to be able to do it.  At its most basic, ‘networking’ is simply about making the most of the opportunities for building up a helpful network of contacts across our discipline that come our way. Elena’s talk raised some interesting insights nevertheless.  Have you ever thought about whether or not to approach a group of people who are already chatting, for example?  If the group is already made up of four or more participants you could be wasting your time.  Similarly, if the group is ‘closed’ in appearance, key indicators being body language and geographical positioning, your interruption might be disruptive rather than productive.  The question and discussion session after Elena’s presentation brought up some agonising dilemmas – for example, how do you ‘exit’ gracefully if you have been stuck talking to the same person for too long?  Or – how do you mollify anti-social colleagues who view your burgeoning networking skills with suspicion? There were no easy answers but we enjoyed asking the questions…

Organising a Conference

As Lana introduced Simon she warned us that he had agreed to step in at the last moment and might therefore not have had much time to prepare. Her worries turned out to be misplaced as Simon managed to impart an impressive amount of practical information in a short space of time. He talked us through the various stages of conference management, beginning with the conference website and finishing with the all important conference dinner.  Key to the whole process is dealing with things in the right order: website and plenary speakers first (because your Call for Papers needs to direct interested people to an informative site) deal with catering and room arrangements while you wait for papers (they will arrive, but only at the last minute), choose Chairs once you have speakers, and Amazon is good for anything the university can’t supply…

I had to leave promptly and so missed the final part of the discussion – people looked quite happy to settle in to finish the coffee and sandwiches and continue to swap stories and suggestions. The next session is called 'Doctoral Discussions: Teaching' and will take place on March 2^nd in Silverstone SB325. If you login to Sussex Direct in a different tab then you can sign up for it here. See you there!

Academic journals: tips for the submission process

by Simon F. Davies

@SFD85

Publishing articles in academic journals is essential for any PhD student hoping for a career in higher education, but doing so can be a difficult and stressful process. The following are a set of tips, not on researching or writing articles for journals, but on the submission process itself, which can be daunting and surprisingly complicated. The majority of journals nowadays have dedicated submission websites; these streamline the process, but they can be confusing on first use.

            
A little about my background: I completed my PhD in 2012; since 2010 I’ve been Assistant to the Editor for Renaissance Studies, the journal of the Society for Renaissance Studies, an interdisciplinary journal covering all aspects the early modern period. My role means I’m the first person to see new submissions and the last person to see accepted articles before they get sent on to the publisher. Over that time I’ve seen submitting authors make the same mistakes over and over again, mistakes which are very easily rectified. The following are all based on real cases.

Plan your time and publish as early as possible. A general tip to start off with: remember that the peer review process takes a long time, and you should always expect to be asked to revise your essay; very few papers are published on first submission. Revised papers will usually be reviewed as well. Journals (especially top journals) will often also have a backlog of accepted articles, which means that it will be a further length of time until your article is actually published, once it is accepted (although these days journals often publish early-access versions of papers online, and these are fully citable). The whole process is a lengthy one (often up to two years from submission to publication), and you should begin it as early on as you can in your PhD.

Choose the journal before making your final edits. Don’t write your article first and then find a journal to submit it to. This is mostly a matter of not having to do your referencing twice: journals often have very specific style guidelines which you will need to comply with, especially for referencing, so you might as well follow their guidelines the first time round. This will almost always include, in addition, a minimum or maximum word limit, so the length of your article will also depend on where you hope to see your article published. Obviously the intellectual reasons for selecting a particular journal are paramount, but don’t neglect practical aspects, and do your research into these early on in the process. On that note…

Stick to the word limit. I am consistently amazed how frequently authors ignore our journal’s clearly stated word limit. This will include notes. If your article simply must be extra-long, and simply must be published in this one specific journal, then contact the editor before submitting to see if they might be OK with it. But there will usually be a different journal with a different word limit that you can submit to instead.

           

The word limit will include any revisions you may be asked to make. Therefore it’s probably a good idea to aim significantly under the word count on first submission, so that you have space to expand, which you will invariably be asked to do. The majority of submissions require revision before publication, and these very often go along the lines of ‘say more about...’. If you are asked to revise, don’t take it personally: it’s almost always valuable advice on how to make your article even better.

 Submit an article, not a chapter. Articles should be self-contained pieces of work in intellectual terms, of course, but there are also practical considerations here: ‘articles’ which read ‘In this chapter I will...’, and files with names like ‘chapter7.docx’ do not look promising. The people who work for journals are academics too, and can spot such things.

Always follow all instructions closely. This should sort of go without saying, but authors don’t always do it, for whatever reason. Each journal will have specific ways of doing things, and they’ve chosen them for a reason – you are trying to get them to publish your work, so you should do what they tell you. (Seriously – I’ve used all the bold, underlining, all caps, red lettering etc. in my submission instructions that I possibly can, and people still ignore them.)

Anonymise your article. In all cases. You don’t need to do anything fancy; just delete all instances of your name. This includes any references to work you have forthcoming or which is otherwise unpublished (such as your thesis), which can also identify you as the author.

Include a cover letter, even if you don’t have to. This will often be an optional field in electronic submission sites, but it looks better, and it’s more polite, to include a letter. It doesn’t have to say much; just confirm that you’re not submitting the article elsewhere, and that you’d very much like to publish in journal X (perhaps offering a reason, though it’s not by any means mandatory).

Find out the editor’s name. Again, not compulsory, but it looks like better if you take the time to address the editor(s) personally.

Submit your article in editable format. This means don’t submit a .pdf: you will have to submit an editable version if your article is eventually accepted (or how will it be typeset?), so you might as well do so from the beginning. The software electronic submission sites use is usually configured to work best with editable files, so these will be much easier on the editor and the reviewers. (Unless you are specifically asked for a .pdf, of course.)

Images: if your article includes images, you will need to be prepared to stump up the cost for high-resolution versions, and to sort out permissions to publish. However, you don’t have to see to this prior to submission: only pay for images when you know your article is going to be published. Low-resolution versions of your images are perfectly acceptable for the purposes of review. Obtaining permission to publish and sorting out reproduction fees can take a very long time, but don’t worry, journals are aware of this and will be willing to wait.

If you have any questions, don’t be afraid to ask. But make sure you’ve read all relevant instructions, and try to find an admin contact, rather than emailing the editor. Contact details can be found on the journal’s main website (often separate from the submission website, if there is one).

Remember: journals want to publish articles! They rely on submissions to continue in existence. The journal submission process can seem like a hostile environment, and peer reviewers can all too often be unnecessarily cruel, but don’t let this fool you into thinking that journals are looking to reject your work. The opposite is the case: editors will do all they can to see that your article is published.

Good luck!

Zen and the art of doctoral research

by Diarmuid Hester

This is not a story about Zen Buddhism per se but about meditation, the part of Buddhist practice that has been most beneficial to me. It’s a story about how spending a few minutes each day in mindful reflection helped me to cope with the daily stresses of doctoral study and the extraordinary strains of a life in contemporary academia.

It all started in September 2012, adrift on the island of Mauritius. A year after completing her PhD, my partner had finally found an academic job on a branch campus of a British university there and, desperate times calling for desperate measures, in less than a fortnight we upped sticks, sold, donated, and left by the bins our life in Brighton, waved tearful goodbyes to friends and family, and boarded a twelve-hour flight to the other side of the world. We knew it was going to be hard: in addition to the usual problems that go with moving abroad (adjusting to a new language and culture, the packing and unpacking, the interminable loop of hold music as you wait to speak to someone from the utility company), one of my biggest worries was the effect it would have on my own PhD.

Entering the second year of my PhD in English literature, I was going to be far from the resources of the British Library – or any library in fact – and without the moral support of my supervisor and other doctoral students. Nonetheless, I’d worked at the University of Sussex library for a few years and had become pretty good at finding electronic versions of books and journal articles. Sympathizing with our predicament, my supervisor had also suggested regular PhD supervisions via Skype and warmly wished us bon voyage. My concerns somewhat allayed, we dreamt of all that Mauritius had to offer: sun, sand, and reading Sontag by the pool.

It went pretty well at first: my partner found us a lovely flat in a new complex (with a pool) and I worked out the details in French with the landlord and the energy companies. Neither of us drives so she had to endure an extremely circuitous trip to work every day aboard one of Mauritius’ garishly personalised party buses, while I walked a couple of sweaty miles in the tropical heat to get groceries at the nearest supermarket. We also quickly realized that Mauritius’ reputation as a honeymoon paradise is one put about by rich tourist resorts, which have annexed the most scenic parts of a country plagued by uneven development, poverty, and corruption.

But we thought we could manage. Unlike the previous year in the UK, which found us living very modestly on a combination of my small PhD stipend and money from her occasional associate teaching work, at least here she had a full-time job and we could afford to live. Plus, I was making great progress on my thesis and she’d even got a contract for her new book.

I suppose I felt the isolation first and probably felt it most keenly. I’ve moved around more than most, having lived for a number of years in France and England after completing my first degree at home in Ireland, but this was different to anything I’d ever experienced. Each day my partner left for work at the university and when I kissed her goodbye, the protracted sequence of silent minutes that would eventually bring her return stretched out before me, as oppressive and inevitable as the warm wet air that plastered our house inside and out. I had some acquaintances – mostly South African contractors I shared a few pints with on a Friday – and a handful of very close friends whose long, loving emails I read over and over, but most of my time was spent quietly alone reading, writing, and, increasingly, staring into space.

Maybe that sounds wonderful to you – a nice peaceful place to hole up and do some thinking – but just imagine living in a foreign country, thousands of miles from everyone you’ve ever known or cared about, not even an expat community to help alleviate the isolation. How long do you think you could do that for? A week? Two weeks? A month? Imagine the ringing silence that has you fleeing to the grocer’s just to interact with another human being, in a language that’s not your own. Imagine feeling this and knowing there’s no escape in sight.

Things were getting bad. I stopped reading. I became irritable and bucked at the burden of the daily shopping-run. Resentment crept into my day: “I never wanted to be here!” The worst was I started to lose sight of the difficulties my partner was facing: surrounded by co-workers who mostly spoke a different language to her, wondering if her academic career had ended before it had even begun, her boredom, her loneliness…

Help came, as it usually does, from a friend. Putting on a brave face, I tweeted a picture of our sun-kissed veranda to which my pal Bobby replied, “Could be a meditation retreat.” I remember hearing the familiar midday silence descend all around me as I watched a lizard skitter across the top of the garden wall for the umpteenth time and I knew I had to do something. Bobby’s a long-time student of Eastern thought so I asked his advice about how to go about meditating. He came back with three tweets:

easy:pt1:sit comfortably; close eyes, notice breath as it enters/leaves nostrils, count breaths,1-10

pt2: if mind wanders , return to breath, start count again from 1.

start with 5mins. The aim: calm mind and all sorts other health stress relieving and seratonin boosting things + enlightenment (!)

There wasn’t much to report at first: I spent a lot of mornings half-asleep, counting breaths, in-1-out, in-2-out, losing count, starting again. For the longest time I forced it a bit too, desperately struggling to think about nothing and failing over and over. Yet I kept coming back to it every day. Why? Because it felt like I was learning something important. Paying attention to the simple, repetitive act of breathing had started to change something deep and indefinite about the way I perceived the world. The stability, the reliability, the embodied-ness of breathing was my oasis on an island that was not of my making; it was my antidote to feeling utterly powerless and at the whim of economic necessity.

The effects rippled outwards. In my relationship I was kinder and more compassionate. I developed a reflex while mediating of being able to observe thoughts as they surfaced in my mind and now I could recognize frustrations and anxieties for what they were: not things inherent in her or me but passing symptoms of an intolerable situation.

In my doctoral work I was calmer and quicker. As weeks of meditation turned into months, slowly the realization dawned that it wasn’t about clearing your mind, it was about being okay with the mind’s natural turbulence. Within the cacophony of competing demands I could now hear my breath, steady and reassuring: bit by bit the research, the writing, the emails, the supervision meetings, the article deadlines, the conference organization, all of that seemed to be placed at arm’s length from my quietly thinking mind.

Finally I found that in addition to the noise, I could also cope with the silence: meditation made the hushed expanse of time take on another hue or textured it differently. I now approached silence, not as something foisted upon me, but as something within which I could occasionally find some agency. Meditation was a kind of silent alchemy – or an alchemy to be performed upon silence.

I’m not going to tell you meditation is going to solve all your problems – it’s not a panacea (my partner and I have since amicably parted ways, for instance). But I really believe that it saved my ass out there in the Indian Ocean and I’m still benefiting from it in innumerable ways: it reduces the ongoing stress of PhD study, relieves the tension of teaching, and markedly ups my serotonin levels. I feel happier and more capable of dealing with life’s stresses and strains.

So if someday you feel inundated, if you’re struggling to deal with the demands of academia, if you feel your hold on things starts to slip, start with 5 minutes. Sit comfortably; close your eyes, notice your breath as it enters/leaves your nostrils, count your breaths, 1-10. If mind wanders, return to your breath, start count again from 1.

I’ve yet to find the enlightenment that Bobby once promised, but I’ll tweet directions when I do.