Psychology Christmas party!

As psychologists, it's usually our patients who get to put their feet up (haha get it?), but last Friday night was this year’s end of year celebration for Psychology. This year has been very busy and productive for me, so I thought it was my personal responsibility to celebrate hard. We all headed to the Toowong Rowing Club and got our drink on...

Mark, me and James getting stuck into our first drinks.

Silly party-hat shannanigans with mystery person! Actually, it's not that much of a mystery - I just couldn't get a hold of this person to ask if I could use a photo where you could actually see her face!

Mark and James often take photos together, so I asked them to take some snaps of the party with my iPhone. What I didn't realise is that they were walking around pretending to take photos of people, but were actually using the phone's front camera to take photos of themselves! Hilarious guys...

Emma and Blake. Not sure if Blake knew how hard it was to take him seriously with that hat/jacket combo...

Blake and me after realising our entry fee only got us two free drinks!

All in all, it was a pretty fun party and a great way to celebrate a big year. If the UQ Psyc Blog ever gets a budget of more than $0/year, I'll be sure to host a party for all our readers!

-Will
www.willjharrison.com

Excuses excuses...

Well the UQ Psyc Blog is back after a brief hiatus. Life has been busy for all the bloggers - conferences, holidays, confirmation seminars, assignment and exam marking, and data collection are just some of the excuses I won’t use to justify why there hasn’t been a new post in a while. What I will use, is this (be sure to watch in full 720p):


That’s a “teaser” video for James and my experience at Psychonomics, a cognitive psychology conference held in St Louis, Missouri, USA. I presented a poster about my work on OKN, and James presented a poster about his work on how unexpected visual events catch our attention.

While we obviously had a lot of fun, a conference is by no means a holiday - if you get a chance to go to a conference, you are there representing yourself professionally, your supervisors and their reputation, and your university. So even though the 30 hour trip to St Louis left James and I a little jet lagged, we couldn’t use that as an excuse when talking about our research, and especially not when talking to the big names in our area.

A definite highlight of conferences is getting to meet people you've only really read or heard about. In my case, this happened during a dinner we had with our supervisors and their colleagues. We got to meet Chip Folk, who, if you search for his article “Involuntary covert orienting is contingent on attentional control settings”, you’ll see has been cited over 700 times (and that's just for one paper co-authored by Roger, our supervisor). We also got to meet Shu-Chieh Wu who still works at NASA where she met Roger, and is another of Roger’s co-authors.

From left: Chip, me, James, Shu-Chieh, Stef, Roger.

Conferences are a lot of fun, but they're also a lot of work. I'm certainly not complaining - in fact I've just submitted an abstract to attend another conference in 6 months!

Stay tuned for regular UQ Psyc Blog updates (again)!

Come hear the UQ Psyc Bloggers talk about our research!

Did you know PhD students contribute to about 50% of all the research published in the School of Psychology?

This Friday, 5 November, the School of Psychology is holding the inaugural Research Higher Degrees Day. 16 students from very different areas in psychology will be talking about all the cool things they've discovered during their PhD research.

Contributors to this very blog will be well represented on the day. Here is a list of our resident bloggers' presentation times and titles:

• 10:20 - 10:40am Rachel McDonald "Conflicting norms: Do multiple groups matter?"
• 11:20 - 11:30am Katie Greenaway "Of aggression, desire for money, and belief in psychic octopi: The strange and sundry effects of lacking control"
• 1:50 - 2:10pm Will Harrison "OKN suppression, perceptual mislocalisations, the universe, and you"
• 2:10 - 2:30pm Joyce Vromen "Does the spider always win the fight for attention? Top-down modulation in fear-relevant Interference"
• 3:30 - 3:50pm Matt Thompson "The psychology of crime-scene fingerprint identification"
• 4:10 - 4:30pm Nonie Finlayson "Attention! And the depths we go to capture it"

You can download the full program (which includes abstracts of each presentation) by clicking here. All Presentations will be in room S304 (Level 3 of Social Sciences Building, #24).

I'll leave you with the first slide of my presentation which will hopefully be indicative of the style of presentation I'll give, as well as arouse your interest in the subject of my presentation!

A reply to a reply to the zero sum game: Should PhD students tutor?

A couple of people have asked me what I thought about Stefanie's comments about tutoring.

I think she makes a good argument for the benefits of having a strong publication record. She is correct in saying that it is very difficult to get short-listed for a job without a strong track record. And I would certainly agree with her central premise that any time spent away from publishing might not be helping you get a job, but only if you are aiming to create your own job through applying for a competitive postdoc or if you are applying for a research only position.

Given, however, that the majority of positions that are advertised are teaching and research oriented positions, then I would argue that tutoring and perhaps teaching a course or two can be valuable experiences during your PhD. I have been on several selection panels for teaching and research positions, and candidates who have had amazing publication track records have not been short-listed, or not been successful at interview because they were not able to demonstrate an ability to teach the required courses.

It is also worth keeping in mind that if you are looking at jobs within Australia, there are many more positions outside of the GO8 universities than there are within the group of top tier universities. Most of our graduates aspire to work at research intensive institutions, however by not looking for opportunities more widely, graduates may miss out on some interesting and enriching jobs. Many of the lower ranked universities now have extensive research aspirations, however when recruiting new teaching and research staff, especially for entry-level positions, they place a strong emphasis on demonstrated teaching ability.

Graduates may be reluctant to apply for these positions due to a fear of having a high teaching load, however, with some planning and negotiation, it is possible to strike a balance between teaching and research. One of the great benefits of working at universities with a different culture is that recent graduates are given a great opportunity to grow both personally and professionally.

There are two other benefits of teaching that I think can sometimes be overlooked. First of all is that I don't think you truly come to grips with a research area until you have to stand up and explain it to a room full of people. It is a great way to learn more about areas of psychology that may be related to your research. Many of my research ideas have come from having to teach courses in psychology and law and social cognition. The regularity of teaching also trains you to become more disciplined in how you research topics, as you have to manage your time carefully.

The second benefit, as I see it, is that teaching gives you a chance to actually talk to students. It is by spending time with students and engaging them in the areas of research that you are an expert in that you interest them in psychology, and perhaps even your area of specialisation. I know that I would not have been successful in recruiting some of my early students if I hadn't done some teaching at the end of my PhD.

Now, all this is not to say that research is not important, quite the opposite. You have to strike a careful balance between publishing and teaching, and so my point is that you should do both. It is very easy to think that teaching is not important or valued, even after you get a teaching and research position. I think this is partly due to the mixed messages academics sometimes receive. Universities don't run as a monolithic organisation (despite how it seems), and the research goals and teaching goals are managed by somewhat separate parts of the university. Not only that, external pressures operate on these two goals at different times.

There has been a lot of noise lately in Australia about the ERA, which is the research quality assessment framework by which universities will be compared. This has generated a lot of focus on research productivity. There are however, major changes coming in how universities are evaluated and compared in terms of their teaching quality, and so we should all expect there to be a greater focus on this shortly. Not only that, but there is a growing awareness that teaching quality impacts directly on student outcomes such as attrition (which is a very expensive problem for universities), as well as demand for courses. And let's be completely honest here, it is through undergraduate students wanting to take our courses that we can afford to spend time on research.

So in sum, you should think about teaching and research as being inter-twined rather than separable. Doing each of them well enhances your ability to do the other. Excellent research attracts students, both at the individual and institutional level. Excellent teaching attracts research students at both levels as well.

(I wrote this at the start of UQ's Teaching and Learning Week, during which it was announced that UQ had won the maximum number of national teaching awards possible…)

Dr Blake McKimmie

Note: While I am the Deputy Head of School (Teaching and Learning), these comments reflect my own personal views on the matter!

Enriching the PhD experience

After several years of hard work, I have just been awarded my PhD and look forward to “walking the stage” in December. My research topic was patient monitoring in anaesthesia with head-mounted displays – one that turned out to be fascinating, challenging, and amazingly rewarding.

When I first started, however, I had thought that the process would be relatively unexciting – enrol, work on your own for a few years, submit, and graduate – but soon discovered that Australian programs are actually remarkably flexible. In fact, your advisers and the university are often willing to help you “enrich” your education.

Enrichment involves participating in activities that, while not strictly necessary for completing your PhD, provide complementary educational experiences that help you become a better scientist. These activities include the summer schools, theses-by-publication, and science communication activities recently described on this blog, plus many more.

If you’re a big picture type of person who likes to take on challenges, then you’ll probably enjoy working on interdisciplinary research projects. For my thesis, I brought a background in software engineering to a team of psychologists, doctors, nurses, and biomedical engineers, and investigated fundamental problems (such as inattentional blindness with HMDs) in the exciting and dynamic environment of operating rooms.

Collaborations are the foundation of academic research; take a look at any journal article and you’ll probably find several co-authors. You can work with your fellow students on side projects (in addition to your PhD), and even expand your professional networks through collaborations. Hosting academic visitors in your lab and going on academic tours is a great way to find future collaborations and job opportunities. The global academic “family” that develops throughout your career is one of the greatest perks of academia.

Other opportunities for travel include internships and fellowships. Internships give you the opportunity to apply the research skills that you learn during the PhD to practical problems in industry. Research fellowships, on the other hand, let you collaborate with internationally renowned researchers and may be part of prestigious scholarship programs such as the Rhodes and Fulbright.

The gap between the academic and corporate worlds can be dramatic at times, but research commercialisation bridges that gap for the benefit of both. Your hard work and expertise helps the wider community, while industry provides funding and support to enhance or continue your research. It also happens to be a great way to supplement your scholarship and travel funds.

Beyond work-related activities, the flexibility of PhD programs also lets you cultivate hobbies that might otherwise be impractical or too expensive if you work in a typical corporate environment. I enjoyed surfing California’s world-class waves during an internship and went snowboarding in the 500+ inches of annual snowfall while on a fellowship in Utah… almost for free!

Enrichment activities are a great way to learn new skills, build up your CV, and enjoy the PhD journey. While there are many potential opportunities available for every student, you’ll have to take the initiative to find the right ones for you.

Dave Liu

PS: I’ll be giving a more detailed talk to HFES-UQ members about my own enrichment experiences in the near future. If you’re a prospective or current PhD student and would be interested in attending, feel free to contact me at naskies@acm.org

The final stages: An account of thesis submission and review

My PhD thesis was compiled one rushed November. I plonked together some papers with a linking page between each and wrote my introduction and discussion sections. “Don’t spend too long on it – only three people are ever going to read it”, intoned my advisor. “Keep it simple, don’t waffle on. Your papers are what count.”

Waffle I did. This was my Magnum Opus, was it not? As far as theses go it was still on the short side, but not as succinct as it could have been.

It was submitted in December. I knew it wasn’t the most carefully pruned piece of writing in history, but I was proud of my achievements. Now a move overseas. The thesis was gratefully out of mind.

It took until the end of May to receive my reviews. One assessor liked it, thought it could have been more fleshed-out, but was happy with it overall. The other assessor, a preeminent scientist in my field (assessed 50 theses, supervised 23)… hated it. Dismay. Some choice quotes from the review include:

“It wanders, it addresses important points then slides into other things. It’s a mess.”

“In conclusion, the thesis is poorly organized and self-contradictory.”

Ouch.

Perhaps arrogantly, this was not what I had been expecting. The positives noted were for “a substantial body of innovative experiments… that lead to provocative results”. However, upon reading the assessor’s comments, it became clear that his reading was… less than complete. He pointed out that I had not done an important control experiment, rendering some of my main conclusions invalid. However, I had indeed done this very experiment. More broadly, it seemed like this assessor had missed the central point of what I was trying to say. He saw contradictions where I did not, and seemed to miss paragraphs of my discussion where (I feel) his concerns were addressed.

The lesson I’ve learned from all this is that, just as for journal articles, it is important for a thesis to be clear and concise. Don’t feel that your introduction and general discussion must provide some great new insight, or be an epic work of deep scholarship. Summarising what you did and saying what you think it means is sufficient (even if this feels on the short side).

It also helps to consider who your markers will be, and what academic system the likely markers work in. One of my assessors (the first) was Australian – hence the feeling towards a longer thesis and “more evidence of traditional scholarship”. The second assessor worked in the US. I am told that my 103-page thesis (including preambles, but with 26 of those pages formatted as two-column journal articles) is a little on the long side for a US audience – perhaps this is why it was only skimmed?

That said, don’t worry too much about the actual thesis write-up: if the chapters are all manuscripts (hopefully submitted / accepted), you can’t go far wrong. It’s worth noting here that even though the second reviewer believed I’d missed a crucial control experiment, his recommendation was still “pass with minor revisions”. At the end of the day, my thesis passed, and three people have read it (well, some at least). Focus on turning out a couple of manuscripts during your candidature and the actual thesis becomes a formality.

Tom Wallis

Reply to the Zero Sum Game: Should PhD students tutor?

This post was written by Stefanie Becker.

In a recent blog (Zero Sum Game) James asked whether it’s a good idea to tutor during your PhD. Let’s assume that you need to earn some money: Is tutoring the best option? Tutoring is highly paid, and you’ll gain some teaching experience, so you may think that tutoring is the thing to do, especially if you want to apply for a university job later.

Weeell, I must say I disagree: Actually, in my view, tutoring is advisable if you’re NOT striving for a university job. However, if you want to take on a job that promotes your university career, the smartest thing is to get the money in by being a research assistant (RA), and in particular, an RA to a productive researcher. The reason is that the researcher may include you as co-author on his papers if you're doing a good job. And, let's not be mistaken about that, PAPERS ARE EVERYTHING.

If you want to stay at a university, you'll need a strong publication record. Even when you want to be a lecturer, there will be many applications for each lecturer position, and the applicant with the most publications will get the job. Of course, there is some weighting, with first-author publications being rated much higher than co-author publications, publications in peer-reviewed journals being regarded more highly than book chapters, etc., and there will be considerations about the field in which you've published, and possibly, the methods you've used in the past, etc., but the most decisive selection criterion for a university job is "number of publications".

Teaching experience may matter at some later stage in the decision processes of universities, but long long long before that, the university will ask (1) whether you are able to produce high-quality research on your own (hint: always publishing with the same senior person may work against you), (2) whether you are able to attract funding, (3) whether your expertise matches with the department, (4) whether you are easy to work with, and only THEN may somebody ask, "Oh and by the way, what courses have you taught in the past?" General teaching experience may not even count for much, but experience with a specific course may get you some points -- but note that it is VERY improbable that this will make a difference in the selection process, because usually, the differences in the other, more decisive, criteria will already determine the rank of each applicant. If you do need teaching experience, it’s likely that experience from teaching one course or being tutor once is sufficient to fulfill the criteria – so you just need to tutor for a single semester.

If you want to teach (for reasons outlined in the full essay), then my advice would be: Start tutoring when you've got your publication record up to where you want it to be. Warning: If you want to go to Harvard, you should go for 7 or even 8 publications and no less than 4 first-author papers; if you’re targeting one of the top-universities in Australia, you may get in there with significantly less, but to be on the safe side, go for at least 5 publications (3 of which should be first-author publications). You may always get in with less, but if you want to make sure... Well, the competition is fierce and growing fiercer every year. As impossible as the numbers above may sound, the people you’re going to compete with have these numbers of publications, or even more. Check out other PhD students in your field of work! I am always amazed at the achievement levels of current PhD students, and I am always happy that I am not competing with the "new generation", but with a slightly lazier bunch. :-)

On the other hand, there is really no reason to cling to universities or research institutions. Your PhD certificate is like a magic door opener to positions that you have never even dreamed of. With a PhD in Psychology, you are eligible for several high positions in well-known and prestigious organizations and companies. You can be a project manager at Siemens and earn in excess of $90,000 per year instead of the $60,000 the university will pay you. You could be working in quality management and control, consulting, or have a high position in administration; you could be an editor or freelancing journalist for a scientific or not-so-scientific journal -- the possibilities are endless.

So, the good news is: Once you've got your PhD, you've proven yourself to be suitable for almost any job that requires brains. The skills you have acquired during your PhD – making yourself familiar with a new research field and its methods, making logical inferences, deriving or making predictions, testing of a hypothesis, taking a critical stance towards the work of peers and your own, writing research reports, working in a team, dividing tasks among multiple people, and so on and so forth – all these are typical managerial tasks and skills, which are required at various different stages in all large organizations. And, non-university employers will NOT base their decisions about employing you on your publication record. So, if you can conceive of a life outside university, there is no reason to avoid tutoring during your PhD -- unless it keeps you from working in the company or environment you're interested in.

If you can’t imagine doing anything else but hanging around university: Check out some cool companies, write them an email and tell them that you’re going to have a PhD in 2 years, and you’d like to do some voluntary work at a companies’ robotic department, or developing sky cars and jet-packs... because you know? with the PhD, the sky is no limit! ;-)

--Stef

Editor's note: Are you a postgrad or academic? What do you think about Stef's post? If you'd like to write a reply, please contact Will Harrison.

A zero-sum game?

A few weeks ago I received an email from a colleague in the late hours of the night regarding a manuscript I am working on. Attached was a paper recently published by researchers overseas investigating an effect very similar to that which I am attempting to publish. Although my immediate reaction was one of panic I thought it best to neglect the paper at least until the following morning as I saw no point in jeopardising a night’s sleep. Alas the damage had been done and after a restless hour or so in bed it became evident that sleep was a remote possibility. I reluctantly began reading the paper.

Long story short, having read the paper I’m optimistic that my work still has something to offer and will hopefully still be published. However a visit to the researcher’s website invoked a second wave of anxiety. This particular researcher, who is now a postdoctoral fellow, had four first author publications and eleven publications in total prior to completing their PHD.

This is not a discussion of quantity versus quality; I just wanted to raise the perhaps bleeding obvious point that as PHD students who aspire to forge a career in research, we are inevitably competing against other PHD students for career opportunities. Thus the bar is determined by the hours put in and quality of work produced by the post-grad researchers in our respective fields.

As a relatively new PHD student this is something I’d, until recently, neglected to think about. I’ve been travelling along optimistic (naively?) that as long as I conduct good science and work hard the publications will come and opportunities will arise. Ultimately though, as hard as I may work, if those around me are working harder then I’m in trouble.

Having discussed this with my supervisors they are strongly of the opinion that 99.9% of my resources should be devoted to publishing papers and that time spent away from this endeavour carries with it a cost. Initially I scoffed at the idea that the little time I spend away from my research is detrimental. The more I think about it though the more I’m beginning to questioning whether I’ve struck the right balance between PHD work and additional work such as tutoring and RA-ing. I’m even questioning whether I should be writing this blog given this could be 400 words towards my manuscript...

The reality is that time is a precious commodity in this business and it would seem that to succeed it must be treated as such. So how do you strike the right balance in what in many ways seems to be a zero-sum game?

Thoughts?

James Retell

Your life in Three Minutes

If you had to tell a complete stranger a summary of your life in just three minutes, what would you say? That’s what the Three Minute Thesis Competition is about... sort of.

This year, resident UQ Psyc blogger Will Harrison is in the UQ finals of the Three Minute Thesis Competition and has to summarise his PhD research in three minutes. Will has to explain the topic of his research, why it’s important and why his results are so special. And if he takes even one second longer than three minutes, he’ll be disqualified.

The main challenge of the competition is for the PhD student to explain their research so anyone can understand it. This means not using any technical language, such as referring to specific parts of the brain—the general public simply don’t know what the ‘parietal cortex’ is.

Although it only takes three minutes, Will has put a lot of time and effort into preparing his presentation—as I’m sure the other seven competitors have—and the stakes are high. The UQ winner gets a $5,000 travel grant and goes on to compete against the winners from universities across Australia and New Zealand.

If you want to come along and here about some of the amazing research going on at UQ (or just to support Will), the finals are being held next Monday 20 September at 3.30pm in the UQ Centre. For more info about the finals and to register your attendance follow this link: http://www.uq.edu.au/grad-school/three-minute-thesis

Here Will’s summary:

“Have you ever failed to find something even though it was right in front of you? To “see” something we are looking for we need to do more than just “look” for it - not only do we need to move our eyes around, but we also need to move our attention to notice the things that are important to us. My aim is to understand how our brains coordinate eye movements with shifts of attention to accomplish simple tasks like playing sports or crossing a road. My findings tell us why we sometimes fail to see something right in front of us and may help us to understand medical conditions in which vision and attention are compromised following a stroke.”

Hope to see you there!
Matt Thompson

School’s in for summer: The joys of summer schools in psychology

Other entries on this blog have mentioned the chance for travel as a major perk of the PhD lifestyle. Speaking as someone who is currently halfway through a six-week trip to Europe, I wholeheartedly agree. So far the highlight of my trip has been the summer school organised by the European Association for Social Psychology. This summer school, like others, offered the opportunity to delve into a research topic over an intensive two-week period. Oh, and did I mention that it took place on a Greek island?

I’ll give a bit of background for readers who are unfamiliar with the concept of a summer school. Many psychological associations hold these events for postgraduate students every few years. They can last anywhere from a few days to a few weeks and are designed to bring postgraduate students together to explore a particular research topic and collaborate with likeminded researchers.

The typical format is of three to five topic “streams” with an internationally renowned expert (or two) acting as workshop coordinator. Students work on a broad research theme (e.g., intergroup emotions) in workshops and often break into smaller workgroups within the workshop to develop research projects. Many students go on to run and publish the studies they design at summer schools.

Summer schools are a different from conferences. First, they are designed specifically for postgraduates. Second, they give the opportunity to learn intensively about a specific research topic for an extended period. Third, they often involve more raucous partying than conferences, because postgrads can be sure that their supervisor isn’t watching.

I really enjoyed my recent summer school experience. Not only did I get to explore a new research area with top-notch experts to guide me, I also have a research project ready to run with international collaborators. Summer schools give people the intellectual freedom to move beyond the narrow research project that makes up a PhD. We tend to get so bogged down in our own little research topic that it will be a breath of fresh air to work on a completely unrelated project for a while.

In addition to more practical outcomes, I have developed professional relationships and collaborations that will continue throughout my career. It was also bloody good fun and is probably the only time in my career that I will attend a research meeting in my swimsuit.

I think that experiences at international summer schools are particularly important for Australian PhD students. We are so isolated from the rest of the world, it is important for us to develop reputations and professional relationships overseas. I would urge all postgraduate students, particularly those who have just started their PhDs, to attend a summer school in your research field. I can’t guarantee it will be held on a Greek island, but at least you will get the chance to travel!

For interested parties, UQ will be hosting the Australasian Summer School in Social Psychology in 2012.

It's who you know

Research is about who you know. I’m not suggesting that if you know a journal editor, your article will get published without the hard yards. What you know is still important.

I’m saying that, as research is all about sharing ideas, it stands to reason that the more people you know, the bigger variety of ideas you’re exposed to. If you know intelligent or creative people, you’re going to be involved in smarter or more novel ideas. Other PhD students are great for bouncing ideas around, and also help you learn about other fields. Your advisors not only give you access to extensive knowledge about their field; they have a lot of experience with theories and ideas.



The people you know also affect the people you have access to. If your advisor has international collaborators, you have access to a broad and prestigious range of people in your field. If you’re part of a lab group, there are all the students and researchers involved. Attending school events expands your horizons to different fields and specialties, opening opportunities for interdisciplinary collaborations.

Furthermore, the people you know can change how you keep up to date with research and news. If you don’t know anyone, new ideas and information are limited to your own imagination and what you read about in text books. On the other hand, you could read certain blogs because your friends do, attend particular conferences with your advisors, or even participate in competitions your co-workers get involved it, all of which exposes you to different people, research, and ideas. The people you meet might collaborate with you in new ways, expose you to better job opportunities, and expand your knowledge field.

It is important to take advantage of the opportunities presented. The people you know could be your future advisors, employers, collaborators, a great source of new research or ideas, or just a friend to keep you sane during PhD!

Being somewhat of an introvert, I often find it difficult to take my own advice, but when I eventually emerge from my lab, the benefits always outweigh the outside light burning my eyes. In my field (cognitive psychology) I have a huge access list. Not only friends and advisors with seemingly unlimited pools of knowledge and international colleagues, but also a large and active school of psychology, collections of psychology blogs through friends, up-to-date journal subscriptions through my university, state-of-the-art 3D vision lab, and vision mailing lists. I still need to put in the hours, but by taking advantage of all of this, the work I do has a much greater impact on my future.

Now, I apologise, as this somewhat ruins the stereotype some people have that academics are socially inept: most wouldn’t have a job if this were the case! We’re not socially awkward, you just don’t understand us ;)


Nonie

Advisor, not “supervisor”

I want this blog entry to be a reminder to those who are already doing a PhD, and a point of consideration for those who are planning on starting a PhD. I want to clarify a misuse of terminology that I think every PhD student has probably made at one point or another, or, like me, far more often. PhD students don’t have “supervisors”, we have “advisors” -- the distinction between these two words is very important.

When I first started my PhD, I soon realised I could run pretty much any experiment I wanted (like this one) with minimal involvement from my advisors. In fact, a lot of students find it quite (frustratingly?) simple to go weeks at a time without even speaking to their advisors.

Sometimes going long periods without seeing the people you work with isn’t a good thing, but, advisors aren’t “supervisors” who stand over your shoulder checking your every step. PhD students need moderated independence from their advisors so we can learn how to stand on our own feet, work through some problems on our own, and learn from our own mistakes.

For me, the flip side to having independence from my advisors is knowing when to go to them for help, to clarify my thoughts, to ask “dumb” questions, or just to tell them I’ve got the shits with an experiment. Remember, PhD advisors are experts in their fields, and they’re probably familiar with a lot of the problems students encounter on their PhD Journey.

I encourage everyone to remember that the role of a PhD advisor is to give advice, not to supervise. If you’re already a PhD student, ask your advisors questions about things you’re not sure of and how best to plan for the road ahead. If you’re thinking of doing a PhD, find an advisor who you will feel comfortable going to for advice.

Personally, I like to try new things and test what I’m capable of doing on my own, but if there’s something I need advice on, I ask my advisors.

-Will
www.willjharrison.com

The quest for a 'useful' PhD topic

One of the first challenges a PhD student faces, is coming up with a PhD topic. This may not sound particularly challenging, but keep in mind that you will largely be dedicating the next three years of your life to this topic. When first setting out on my quest to find a PhD topic, I went well packed with my supervisors' support, a healthy dose of enthusiasm, as well as a list of requirements that my potential topic would have to meet. In short, the list I had created looked something like:

The first four points, from the beginning, provided some guidance in my search for a topic. However, the fifth point initially seemed to hinder my progress more than that it helped. I should have foreseen this, of course, when changing it from is useful for society to is 'useful' for society. Assuming that I am not citing somebody else's work, quotation marks in my writing usually indicate that it is unclear, even to myself, what I am trying to say.

Even though I didn't know what I meant exactly with the fifth point, I did know what I didn't mean. I didn't start my quest looking for a PhD topic that would revolutionise society [I'd probably never have finished in that case]. Neither was I looking for a topic that would make the world knock on my door in awe to find out about my research [idem ditto].

Though, had I known then what I know now, I clearly would have chosen chocolate as my topic.

Instead of exhausting myself trying to find a PhD topic, I saved a small amount of energy to ponder on the mysterious meaning of 'useful' for society. For many psychologists 'useful' may mean contributing to improving treatments for people suffering from debilitating mental disorders. But did it mean that to me too? No, I was quit sure that wasn’t the 'useful' I was looking for. Instead I expected that mystery would be more likely to be unraveled if I focused on everyday behaviour in everyday people.

After a couple of days largely applying Unconscious Thought Theory I agreed with myself that what useful means to me is that my research should have some value outside the lab. No matter how small. To keep myself motivated over the next few years, my research has to centre around a topic that could potentially be interesting for everyday people and their everyday behaviours.

In the end, the fifth point on my list proved a critical factor in deciding on my PhD topic. While I started out looking at how a specific type of emotional stimuli influences attention, the first, fourth, and fifth points on my list have lead me to wonder how attention is influenced by emotions themselves.

Though I cannot rule out that one day I may fall victim to media temptation, abandon the above topic and dedicate my life to finding out how attention is influenced by white chocolate.

- Joyce

Atypical day in the life...

Despite this blog being called ‘a day in the life of a psychologist', and Will pretending that he spends his days driving around Brisbane and on skiing holidays, there hasn’t been a description of what us PhD students do all day. This is not only because there are so many wildly different areas of research, but also because our work and personal lives vary so much.

For example:


People have many different jobs. These may include (on top of being a PhD student):
Tutoring, research assistant work, programming, part time checkout chick, research guinea pig, babysitting, bee keeping (you never know...)



Our work can also vary greatly depending of the stage of the experiment or study.
We could be frantically researching to ensure our brilliant idea hasn't been done yet, or stuck in the lab trying to figure out where our programming went wrong. We could be wading through data and statistics, or writing an article that is going to make us famous.


Schedules vary depending on the size of your social circle!
There are the coffees and lunches, and then the journal clubs, meetings, presentations and seminars. If you're really nice, or just can't think of an appropriate excuse in time, half of your life is spent doing friend's experiments for them!

I would like to share one such day. This was my Thursday:

Arriving at uni at 8:30 (damn car parks filling up so quickly), the first half hour was spent catching up on emails and facebook (this is the last I mention this, although you can be sure it occurs regularly throughout the day of a student).
9-10am: Analysing data and doing statistics for my first completed experiment (yay!)
10-11am: Writing an outline for presenting these results to my supervisors.
11-2pm: Testing participants. As this primarily consists of watching first year psychology students press buttons, this also allowed me time to practice a speech, grab lunch, and start programming a new experiment.
2-3pm: Finished programming the experiment, and then decided it was terrible.
3-5pm: Analysing the latest experiment (those were the last participants needed!), and adding these results to my presentation outline.

At 5pm was the three-minute thesis competition. I do not like public speaking, however being a researcher requires presenting your research, so I entered this to get feedback for future reference. I will leave the details of this competition to Will Harrison, and offer my congratulations for his winning it! For those interested, the SBS finals for this take place on the 1st Sept, come along and support psychology!

Keep in mind that my day is in no way indicative of how others spend their time. For example, while I tend to stick to the hours of 8:30 to 5, many of my colleagues stay after hours and weekends. I prefer to keep my weekends free for things like drinking, sleep, trips to Melbourne, and bacon.


Nonie



Are you studying Psychology@UQ and want to contribute to theuqpsycblog?? Send Will an email to find out how: will.harrison@uqconnect.edu.au

Retreat!

Last week, Katie gave us some tips on how to write a lot. Her best bit of advice was to allocate an hour, lock yourself away, and write. Although sometimes—especially with the constant interruptions and the regular chime of email notifications—an hour just isn’t enough.

Each year, academic staff receive strategic funds to spend on improving their research or teaching. Rather than being selfish and getting an iPad, my supervisor treated Wen and I to a writing retreat week on Stradbroke Island. Although there was lots food and even more red wine,

it was largely a serious affair. We rented a beautiful house near the beach and severed our internet connections...

We put on our pajamas, brewed some coffee,

and wrote...

And wrote...

And wrote. Until Wen’s pet parrot could no longer bear the boredom and proceeded to chew everything in sight.

The lab writing retreat was a great experience and we each achieved a lot. So if you have writing to do (and who doesn't), I suggest putting yourself in a situation conducive to writing—whether it's escaping to an island for a week, or just unplugging the net for a couple of hours ;-)

Matt Thompson

The Code for Success

Three weeks ago I set myself the goal of learning how to program experiments and run data analyses using MATLAB. Up until now I've been working with a program called Presentation Neuro-Behavioural Systems which uses a language loosely based on C and Basic. Although the capabilities of Presentation meet my programming needs at the present, a number of my colleagues currently work with or are switching to MATLAB and I feel I should follow suit. On top of this MATLAB is just a far more powerful software package than Presentation, capable of performing complex data analyses that presentation can not.

So how much progress have I made over the last three weeks? Conceptually very little sadly, though I have manage to successfully write my first MATLAB based program which displays a series of Harry Potter images. It's always a bonus when you can mix work with pleasure :)

Learning a new programming language is tough and it doesn't come naturally, at least not to me. I find programming is very much a love hate relationship, especially when you're starting out. I seem to spend a lot of time cursing profusely at the computer and flailing my arms around, frustrated that MatLab won't display or do what I want it to.

In fact I find it much like trying to learn a musical instrument. You know the sound you want to produce, it's all there in your head, yet when you try to play it it just sounds like white noise. The same goes when I'm learning to program. I know exactly what I want my experiment to look like and I just wish I knew all the MatLab commands to make it happen instantly. Instead my efforts are met with countless errors telling me that my script reads like nonsense.

Perseverance is the key though because the upside is worth it. Finally getting a line of code to work or even better an entire program is incredibly satisfying! It's like a shot of adrenaline and when it happens make sure you've got a beer on hand cause you're going to want to ride the high...seriously. Victories can be short lived so make them count.

So if you’re considering research in the field of psychology, particularly cognitive psychology, it can be extremely beneficial if you have some programming ability. Possessing even just basic programming skills affords you the freedom to tweak and optimise your experimental parameters and conditions such that you maximise your chances of finding the effects you're after. And we all know how fickle some of our effects can be sometimes.

Going into honours I'd had zero experience programming and my supervisor told me I'd have to learn a programming language in order to program my experiment. Suffice to say I felt like I was up sh*t creek without paddle. It was hard work and a lot of hours at the computer for not much immediate reward. It certainly paid off in the long run though and I'm very thankful I was forced to learn it. So my advice for any prospective honours or post-grad students, if you get the opportunity to dabble in some programming, jump at it. Being able to program has certainly opened up a lot of opportunities in research for me.

Happy programming

James

How to write a middling to fair amount

It’s the bane of every PhD student’s existence: writing. You’ve conducted the research, analysed the data, made sense of it all…and then you have to put metaphorical pen to paper. What was so clear in your head all of a sudden seems clunky and rambling when it’s written down. That witty title you thought of a week ago is trite when you’ve read it fifteen times in a row. So you agonize over sending the draft to your supervisor and end up missing the deadline. Again.

Unfortunately, this is a normal experience for a lot of students. People often have angst over writing – is it good enough, does it make sense, if they read it will people finally recognise me for the fraud I am? The natural response when people feel like this is to avoid writing all together. This is not a functional response.

So the trick to reducing angst about writing is to do it. A lot. In his book How to Write a Lot, Paul Silvia offers this advice: write every day. Not only should you write everyday, you should jealously guard your writing time and lock yourself away like a hermit to do it. This might seem a bit excessive and impractical for those of us who share an office with other postgrads. So what is another option?

Peer pressure, pure and simple. Have other people pressure you into writing when all you want to go is put it off and collect more data. Silvia recommends starting a writing group for people who need social support (or pressure) to meet their writing goals. In a writing group, you publicly announce your writing goals then own up the following week if you haven’t achieved them.

I can speak as someone who is a member of a postgraduate writing group that this system doesn’t always work so well. Being friends with the people who are supposed to berate you for not meeting your goals can make it hard to get critical feedback on your progress. We have recently found a way around this problem, however: money.

We each put $20 into the pot at the start of semester. Then we commit to a group goal – we will each write at least 500 words a week every week. That includes weeks that we are testing, marking, and on holiday. If at the end of semester we have made the target number of words, we have a rocking party with pizza and beer. If we don’t make the target, we donate the money to something we all agree is heinous and should never be funded, like the Society for Drowning Kittens for Fun.

I’ll keep you guys updated on our progress. For now, think about starting your own writing group and get creative with ways to stay on track with your writing. Silvia’s philosophy is that it doesn’t matter what you write about, so long as you are writing every day. Try writing a blog entry for the UQ Psyc Blog. This one is 513 words – that’s my target met for the week!

Are you studying Psychology@UQ and want to contribute to theuqpsycblog??Send Will an email to find out how: will.harrison@uqconnect.edu.au