Career advice to my 20-year-old self

I recently stumbled upon an interesting text by Emilie Wapnick on the career advice her twenty-year-old self would have needed. That of course got me thinking about what would I tell myself if I could go ten years back in time, and so I wrote a letter. [For the purpose of this intellectual exercise, I …

On work-life balance

I am currently deep in what I think will be the most stressing time in my whole PhD. I love writing, so I know that won't be a problem, but this is my last chance to collect some data so that I have something to write about the following months. And I've been struggling. Luckily, …

On risks and control

My whole PhD studies have been a journey of risk management, through risk assessment (what could go wrong?) and mitigation (what can I do to minimize the impact of those risks, were they to occur?). I have several plans A, B and C in place at all times, to ensure quick and precise responses that …

On practice, patience and self-improvement

Today I had a revelation. For a long time I have known that I am very bad at being bad at things. I feel an absurd amount of shame and embarrassment when I do things wrong, and that holds me back from achieving some of my goals. I have always blamed this on the fact …

Teaching

I have been teaching for almost as long as I can remember. When I was little, my best friend had a hard time at school. Today she would have been quickly diagnosed with ADHD, but 20 years ago she was just lazy, unintelligent and easily distracted. We used to do our homework together several times a …