RSS FEED IDEMS: PhD diary
- arbitrary constant — relaunched
Whilst the PhD Diary languishes unfinished, the main arbitrary constant site has been given a fresh lick of paint and relaunched. If anybody visiting the PhD Diary is interested in film, literature, politics, photography and other things besides, then, please visit arbitrary constant....
- Update
I know, I know. All I'm going to say is that my studies are nearly officially over — I started a job way back in June but my viva is on Tuesday. The plan is to finish off this diary retrospectively so that by Christmas it is a complete record of my time as a postgraduate student. To that effect, please accept my apologies for the prolonged silence — and keep 'em peeled for updates in the next week or two....
- Contribution to knowledge
These three words are what will ultimately decide whether or not you get awarded your PhD/EngD. In your final viva, your examiners will require you to prove that the work you have done as part of your postgraduate studies has made this much-vaunted contribution to knowledge. Undertaking training then on a piece of equipment, principally designed to solve an industrial problem, means you have to look for the academic angle. Perhaps the biggest danger associated with the EngD, an industrially based form of postgraduate study, is that you spend the...
- Training day
Starting off as a postgraduate student, the theory goes that your previous studies (usually your undergraduate degree) will have equipped you with the skills you need to be a researcher. The theory often fails because the types of things that you will do as part of a PhD/EngD are usually very specialised, whereas undergraduate teaching tends to be somewhat more generalised. A surprising amount of your time is therefore spent learning, be that through (directed) reading of printed matter (journal papers etc) or hands on training with equipment etc. Having...
- Back to reality
Having completed my clutch of conferences for the time being at least, Im back in the office today ploughing through the usual pile of emails that always accompany any period of absence from the computer. Local Government always seems busier around election time and with May 5th being the polling day for County Council elections along with the other one this office is no exception. My priority today is to complete my assignment from the Environmental Law module. Keen readers will remember that the EngD has about 16 modules dispersed...
- Conferences III
This week I presented at my second conference in two weeks. Last week, I stood up in the elegant surroundings of the Institute of Electrical Engineers in Savoy Place London. Here I talked about the factors that car sharers consider important in their decision to car share. Essentially, its all about the money. For those of you who pay an annual fee to a professional institute (Physics, any branch of engineering, computing etc) and wonder quite what they spend the money on I may have an answer. Their plush London...
- Conferences II
As touched on in the last entry, this week I'm in Birmingham for the "Smart Moving conference 2005". Essentially, it's about all different ways that technology improves travelling. This covers everything from parking technology, increasing road capacity, giving information to the traveller and a whole lot more. Yesterday I stood up and presented my paper entitled "Strategic Management of Urban Road Networks" - basically talking about examples of good practice for local authorities looking to minimise delays from highway incidents. From my experience, conferences seem to be divided into two...
- Conferences galore
During my last stint as guest diarist, regular readers will remember me describing some of the projects that were keeping me busy back in August 2004. A key part of academic research is publicising your work this very much fits in with the brief of a university to create and disseminate knowledge. Whilst papers in academic journals, not unlike the current one being undertaken by Mr Watts himself, are a key part in this, conferences also have a vital role. Thanks to some unfortunate timetabling, I'm presenting my second...
- I have the bridge
Many thanks to Rich for once again turning the shop keys over to me. In the next few posts, I hope to try and bring you up to date with the things that have been keeping me busy on my EngD, not least the two conferences that are taking up a big chunk of my time this month. More on that story later......
- Guest diarist takeover
Having confirmed his fee and the very generous rider, I am happy to confirm that my good friend Paul Canning will be resuming his guest diarist post here at the PhD diary for the next two weeks. Whilst Paul wows you with his car-sharing antics and irreverent wit, I'll be concentrating on writing-up and maintaining a healthy obsession with LaTeX help pages scattered around the internet....
- Long haul starts here
Whilst my supervisor looks at re-drafting the paper I have been working on, he suggested I make a start on writing-up my thesis proper. It seems like quite a daunting task if you think of it in terms of writing down every thought of the last 18 months or so in an intelligible, concise form, but fortunately this is not the situation I am facing. For my annual review, I produced a substantial report, about which I had this to say: The document that I handed in will, after a...
- y'(0) = 0 paper — second draft
As promised last week, here is the second draft of the paper I am currently working on (it's a pdf file, around 192k). The main change contained within this draft is the statement of the fundamental theorem immediately, which can be found in section 2. Following that, examples are moved to section 3 to show how the fundamental theorem works and then some trickery that allows the theorem to work for a new class of equations is given in section 5. The "further work" section remains virtually the same. The...
- BAMC one year on
Nobody needs me to highlight how quickly time passes by — life does that easily enough. But upon arriving at the department earlier this morning, I was reminded by a fellow postgraduate student that our supervisor was away at a conference this week, and with that reminder a gentle nudge concerning the slow trickle of time that thwarts us al eventually. Being away at a conference is not so odd where my supervisor is concerned, since he has been to a couple of conferences over the last few months. What...
- y'(0) = 0 paper — first draft
The paper I've been working on for a while is currently with my supervisor, who is making various changes to it. As an indication of how things are progressing, I thought I would post here the various drafts so that readers can have a look — if they are so inclined — at how a/the paper takes shape. To start this off, then, we have the first draft. It's a pdf file, around 180k, so shouldn't take too long to download. Overall, it contains a lot of information — in...
- Sup(p)er work, Dr Ben
It's hard, you know, and this diary has occasionally hinted at how hard it can be. Postgraduate study, that is, not being a celebrity. It's not rocket science. Though — on occasion — it can be. I've decided to bail and feel much better for it, but plenty of people soldier on, sacrificing a great deal, including their sanity, their friends, their ability to communicate, their ability to sleep, their ability to do anything but work, their ability to eat, their ability to earn a decent wage, their ability to...
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