your academic FYP 16th January, 2025

Academia essentials hand-picked fortnightly for the informed scholar

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Hey Scholar, here's what we have for you this week:

• PhD, Post-doc, and Research opportunities 🇸🇬 🇩🇰 🇬🇧

• A knowledge management system that allowed one academic to publish 400 articles and 70 books in 40 years

• A musician talks about teaching quantum mechanics without a physics background

• Google made us stupid, and we didn't even notice

OPPORTUNITIES

💼Funded PhDs, Postdocs and academic job openings

• PhDs, Post-docs and Academic Positions @ Aarhus University, Denmark: click here for PhDs and click here for post-doc and academic positions

• Funded PhD Positions @ Loughborough University, UK: click here

• Academic and Research Positions @ National University of Singapore: click here

• Google DeepMind Research Internship @ University of Cambridge, UK: click here

If the idea of making your PhD application is daunting, here's a detailed guide to help you through the entire process👇

RESOURCES

🧠A PhD Survival Guide: Trust him, he's a doctor

To get yourself in the zone to start your work, warm-up reading is a must and we've got you covered for the next week: a few pages of this PhD survival guide a day will get those brain juices flowing. Written in a personal, almost diary-like manner, the author talks through their struggles, their thought process and their journey to becoming a critical, independent scholar. It's funny, thoughtful and raw. You're welcome.  

🕸️The Zettelkasten Method: Connections, not a collection

70 books and 400 journal articles published in 40 years, that's nearly 1 article a month and 2 books a year, and that, my dear scholar, is Niklas Luhmann for you. He achieved this impressive feat with two things: a love for writing and the Zettelkasten Method—a note-taking and knowledge management system that organizes thoughts with a focus on agile, interconnected ideas. Aspiring to Luhmann's level of productivity might be a tall order, but understanding his methods could be a great place to start. This website explains the fundamentals of the Zettelkasten Method, or if you prefer watching over reading, this video explains how to use the system digitally for your PhD.

BRAIN FOOD

🎨Science is an art

A musician who plays the flute and an expert of literature walk into a maths lecture to teach. It sounds like the beginning of a bad joke but it's the reality at St John's College, where an interdisciplinary curriculum blurs the lines between art and science. If the idea that a musician can teach quantum mechanics makes you breathe out your nose harder than normal, watch this interview. It's soothing, comfort-content and it will make you feel smarter we guarantee it.

🤖Google Made Us Stupid (And We Didn't Even Notice):

Before social media and ChatGPT reduced our attention spans, librarians were worried that screen-based searching activities (basically, searching for academic literature on Google) would be the end of our capacity for sustained analytical thought. This article published in 2011 (probably available in full on the usual site to get access to papers) is all the proof you need that history is doomed to repeat itself. It only took 14 years for Google Scholar to go from dangerous new technology to indispensable to our research. Really makes you wonder how we'll be talking about AI in 14 years time.

NEWS

⚖️PhD in Law Sues Cambridge

Undeterred by failing his viva, this Law PhD student is putting his education to good use: suing Cambridge University for lost earnings after his job offer was withdrawn due to the viva outcome. The claim alleges that the examiners were not informed about adjustments recommended by the University's Disability Resource Centre to ensure the examination accommodated his disability.

🌏West is best East is Good Too

The major Anglophone nations—the United States, United Kingdom, Canada, and Australia—have long stood as the prime choices for international students seeking top-tier higher education. However, as these countries increasingly feature in headlines for their growing hostility and less welcoming attitudes toward immigrants, the long-held belief in the superiority of Western education may be losing its sheen. In contrast, Asian countries are poised to rise as the appealing new hubs for higher education, both literally and figuratively becoming the 'hot' new destinations for global scholars.

KEEPING IT REAL

Captain Academia: Civil War 

Despite being situated in International Studies, this abstract touches on something that seems to be almost universal in academic research: organising ourselves into academic “sects” and then waging civil war. It's worth remembering that “there are multiple valid and perhaps even complementary paths to understanding”.

Source: 'Why "isms" Are Evil' by David Lake 

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