My Academic Journey

Even though, I am an introvert, I miss my colleagues enormously. I like being around people, even if it requires more energy than staying by myself. But enough of the background information. Currently, I enjoy working from home. This is how I get science done from my home! Most of the things that work here, are likely to work later at the office. Try some of them out! :)  My alarm went off before 7AM. I do my daily Duolingo practice and get out of bed. Then I head to the yoga mat. Time for some morning yoga of 10-30min. Then it’s time for breakfast. The work day starts by taking over a part of the kitchen table. When I am ready, I set up my Pomodoro application on the phone and start by either planning the day or checking what I have planned. One the road to productivity (c)FotoJan My first productivity “secret”: Pomodoro. It is a technique helping with concentration and with remembering to take breaks. Brains are muscles just like other parts of the body. ...

In the third workshop, we had professors Vibeke Lehmann Nielsen and Carten Jensen to tell us about publishing. They also pointed out that as a young scholars, using time for non-academic writings and presentations is not strategic: they don't count towards tenure. This conflicted a lot with the discussions that I have been following in Finland. Like at the conference in Pori, Finnish professors were telling how scientists should be more openly in social media. Additionally, in our evaluation format there is a place for public visibility.. Maybe I should rethink about blogging? Although, I am not using my "work hours" for writing here - which is why the topics and texts are quite light. In any case, it is something to think about in addition to should I stay (in academia) or should I go (to industry) . a tired doctoral student. The biggest take away from this workshop was cover letter in which you should tell the editor "why this is a must -pub...

On Thursday, I was heading back to the central rail station, when I got an SMS from home. "You have a letter from the Niilo Helanter Foundation. Should I open it?". I quickly reply: "Opeeeeen it!". I wait for three seconds max, and phoned back to him. I was feeling excited and anxious at the same time. "Please say if it's positive or negative right away!" I begged. But why would they bother sending a 'no thanks' per mail.. Slowly, Jan started to read the letter. I wanted to scream of joy, but we don't do that in Finland. I had to be satisfied with crying out of happiness (quietly of course). The thing is, a grant makes you truly free. With a grant, you can go anywhere - if you like. I felt so free! Couple of weeks back, I learned something new about myself. Planning big and far motivate me the most. I know that some of the plans sound too ambitious but small plans make me procrastinate.  Some people roll their eyes at my goals. Th...

Benjamin Hardy wrote an article justifying a lifelong plan  (" If You’re Too Busy For These 5 Things: Your Life Is More Off-Course Than You Think "). My first impression was that this sounds like what a control freak would do. The I read on, there are some cool advises and the article even inspired one person to form a blog about presented ideas (in Finnish though). Yet, I agree with  Benjamin P. Hardy  on that you should have a some kind of a plan. Hardy emphases that you should know your why by quoting Michael Jr: Know Your Why . It is also a nice video. But the point that he made in the video was: when singer knew how he wanted him to sing, he sang so beautifully that the audience stood up. It was not his own "why" (e.g. purpose of singing) but this video is used to emphases why over what. Today, I found amazing TED talk about purpose. After listening to this, I felt relieved. "Purpose" is simply a feeling . Terri Trespicio tells a hint for financi...

 It's Friday! Time to relax soon. Have you tried different lengths of work days? The advantage of studying (and doctoral student  work partly) is that you can set your schedule freely. When I was studying for the bachelor degree, I discovered that studying each and every single day was the most efficient way to spend time. However, I had a bat habit of playing games that distracted. Once in awhile I gave them up for reading to exams - and then started again. Now, I have prohibited those kinds of games that run even when you're not playing. (So, I might spend time with games like Civilization -phone and computer- Carcassonne -phone and a board game- and little big planet - PS 3 and PS4). When doing the masters degree, I found out that I cannot continue like that very long. I had no  many hobbies, I mostly studied. Thus, I started to go to gym three times a week and to have one day off once in week or two. This increased the amount learned while focusing to study....

Yesterday, the plans for research exchange took big steps. The Doctoral School of the university of Vaasa arranged an info-meeting concerning all the international possibilities that we PhD students can take advantage of. Our international coordinator Juhani Moisio listed all gateways to abroad and Virpi Juppo listed possible places to apply for travel grant and reasons to do a research exchange. We also got advice for 1) when to start 2) where to start and most importantly 3) talk to your supervisor.  They also noted that the process is different if you work for the university of Vaasa. This is my case. As the plan is to stay two semesters, I need to check: HR supports this exchange (supervisor, project cordinator and host: check) the social security taxation personal expatriate insurance expatriation travel plan register at the destination country (in Scandinavia we don't need visas)  And funding for the spring term (my contract ends in December)   HOUS...

As mentioned couple of days back on this blog and amazing TED talk of Nadia Jaber PhD training lacks career planning. Actually, career planning is at least in Finland a new thing and older academics  at our department think that it is nonsense: just graduate and end up somewhere from where you might end up to your dream job or stay there forever. I am a fan of study plans and I love searching for study options all around the globe. As I was surfing online, I discovered an incredible opportunity to study for LSE diploma online that might even count as the first year in the masters program. As I dig deeper, I found the article of Martin Williams: Moving Career Up  Gear: Top Tips published by Guardian.The article is some years old but I find the content timeless. Picture is from Saltkaret that is near Vaasa, winter 2016, by Jan Gustafsson. The Guardian: moving career up gear expert top tips  offers amazing questions and advises for career path planning. Alread...

This text has some just found TED talks. I don't usually listen to TED but when I do, I search for inspiring speaks and cool tips. As you can see, my week end was full of new motivation towards different sources:     Reggie Rivers underlines that we should focus on things that we can affect instead of the outcome itself. His speech helps to get perspective and to see what you really can do. I liked his examples.  Scott Geller speaks about want vs obligatory; success seeker vs failure avoidance; and how to feel and make feel empowered. The check of empowered: 1) can you do it? 2) will it work? 3) is it worth it? 3 yes = competent  --> self motivated. But that's not all. He also proved that we can all learn from each other that is also an important assumption in my research. Geller tells how he taught his drum teacher how to teach drum rolls by explaining his learning. This is actually a spillover effect, the cu...

Happy women's Day! To celebrate strong women, here is a speech of Nadia Jaber, who explains outside Academia options and tells her PhD career story. Just like her, I have searched online for different kind of career advice that resulted as activating this blog, following couple of blogs and buying a career advice book. The book tells about how to get a tenure track job. However, some outside academia options are starting to sound enlightening. It is going to be interesting to see where I end up, but here Jaber describes how much PhD students need career advices - and how to provide them to yourself: The Economist published a the glass-ceiling index . If you put 100% weight on education cap, Sweden and Finland are on the top. Indeed, when I started my PhD journey, half of the new PhD students in Finland were women. In our economic department, 75 % of PhD students that are present at the university are women. However, the professors and assistant professors are all mal...