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Amber Seaward

Messed Up! 1: Richard Wortley on Effective Writing

Three key lessons from Richard:

Learn to be bold. Make arguments, don't just describe. Don't be afraid to disagree.
Learn to write the chapter as if you already know everything and find the most effective way of organising and articulating them.
Never use the word "this". It's almost always ambiguous.

Messed Up! 2: Michael Frith & Chris Lin on Failing the Viva

Three key lessons from Michael and Chris:

Don't worry about it.
Know your thesis (which you should because you wrote it!)
Don't take it too seriously. Your examiners want to have a humane conversation.

Messed Up! 3: Paul Gill on Fund Fiction

Three key lessons from Paul:

You need an idea that you can sell to someone, ideas that have impact orientation.
For theme set funding calls: You need to know where that topic came from, how and why it was set, where the problem came from.
Be organised; know your deadlines, manage partners and budget, comply with call requirements.

Messed Up! 4: Kate Bowers on presenting

Three key lessons from Kate:

Make sure you tell a story. Remember it is a different skill from writing up research, so make sure you prepare that story. Have a clear message and prepared it in advance.
Rehearse. Make sure you are within time limits.
Own it and just be who you are. Remember that you are doing it for yourself. Remember why you are doing it and that you can do it in your own way with your own personality.

Messed Up! 5: Ella Cockbain on Media Relations

The video for this episode is not yet available.

Three key lessons from Ella:

Be careful about what and how you say it.
Be brave. Stand up for what is right and back yourself.
Take care of yourself.

Messed Up! 6: Kartikeya Tripathi on Ethics

Three key lessons from Kartikeya:

Keep on doing research in difficult environments. Embrace the ethical challenges of doing research in these settings.
There is a lot of data out there that will bring up very difficult ethical questions. Think about answering these questions.
Understand your audience. Do your research on the research setting. Understand the context and the people and then convey the message effectively; not everything needs to be communicated in a format.

Messed Up! 7: Jyoti Belur on paper rejections

Three key lessons from Jyoti:

Don’t take it personally. Let your anger play out. Talk to somebody about it.
Accept that the revisions have to be made.
Make the revision in the spirit of constructive critical feedback.

Messed Up! 8: Toby Davies on Early Teaching Mistakes

Three key lessons from Toby:

Keep it simple. Don't over complicate the task. Focus on doing a good lecture.
Beware of the administrative side of running a module. If something weird can happen, it will happen.
Imagine how it would be to teach yourself if you knew nothing of the subject. Write step by step of the story line so you can identify the gaps.

Messed Up! 9: Alex Bish on Tackling Procrastination

Three key lessons from Alex:

Learn what works for you by testing plenty of different things.
Find a routine that makes you happy and that will bring you stability wherever you find yourself.
Try breathing work. It clears your mind and it's powerful.

Messed Up! 10: Patricio Estevez-Soto on finding a job through rejections

Three key lessons from Patricio:

Be strategic about what job you want to get. Plan toward this job/career.
Do not be discouraged from applying to a job, even when you think you are not strong enough. It is better to go through the experience than not taking the chance.
Do not be discouraged from not getting the job. Regard it as a learning moment to improve for your next application.

Messed Up! 11: Vaseem Khan on the most common PhD pitfalls

Watch or listen on YouTube or Spotify:

Three key lessons from Vas:

Value the people: learn how to work with others.
Plan toward your long-term goals: be sensible and organised, to maximise the chance you'll achieve these goals.
Have fun in what you do.

Messed Up! 12: Alina Ristea on adapting to new environments

Watch or listen on YouTube or Spotify:

Three key lessons from Alina:

Ask questions.
Learn from the locals: socialise, even if you are shy, to make a few new friends.
Balance work with leisure: do not miss out on exploring new places while you are there next to working.

Messed Up! 13: Sherry Nakhaeizadeh on controversial research

Three key lessons from Sherry:

Remember that science is open but people are not. People tend to be quite narrow minded, keep this at the back of your mind.
You will come a long way with grace and manners. It is really easy to become bitter and angry and act on your negative emotions. It is always harder for people to respond poorly to you if you continue to show respect for yourself and others by keeping calm.
Let the data speak for itself. Be open to the fact that the interpretation of the data may differ between scientists and researchers. If the data is there, trust it and let the interpretations come.

Messed Up! 14: David Suber on adapting to the realities of fieldwork

Three key lessons from David:

Inform yourself beforehand and do the boring legwork. Talk to people who have done the fieldwork in those areas before and learn from their experience.
Allow more time for the trip. Give yourself time to be unproductive and don't let the situation get under your skin.
Factor in support from the start. Consider the aftermath of the experience and recovery support.

Messed Up! 15: Mohammed Almazrouei on coping with stress in PhD research

Listen on Spotify:

Three key lessons from Mohammed:

Enjoy the PhD journey. There will be ups and downs work towards a work life balance and enjoy the process. Stress is normal.
Build a supportive network. An active and selective group of people (friends, family, colleagues, and supervisors) that you can trust.
Break projects down into manageable tasks. Focus on the next small achievement.

Messed Up! 16: Dr. Marie Vasek on navigating gender and discrimination in research

Three key lessons from Marie:

Set personal boundaries.
Find friends and make them allies.
More gender diversity in computer science and related technical fields will help research to progress - different genders work and think in different ways.

Messed Up! 17: Dr. Lorenzo Pasculli on writer’s block

Listen on Spotify:

Three key lessons from Lorenzo:

No-one is immune from writer’s block: everyone can be affected, so it is important to share our experiences and listen to insights from your peers & mentors.
Recognise the scope of your paper: you can’t please everyone, so define to yourself the boundaries of your paper regarding your audience, your subject matter, and your perspectives.
Write, write, re-write: remember that your first draft will never be the last one, and allow the structure to change through multiple drafts.

Messed Up! 18: Sarah Ying Zheng on imposter syndrome

Listen on Spotify:

Three key lessons from Sarah:

It’s okay not to know everything: especially when starting a PhD. If you knew everything at the start, there would be nothing to learn during the PhD!
Be curious: don’t be afraid to ask questions, and don’t be held back by the feeling that you might come across as an ‘imposter’.
Get to know your peers: get to know their interests, collaborate with them, and build up a knowledge base together.

Messed Up! 19: Patricio Estevez-Soto on “Asking the hard questions: is academia right for you?"

Listen on Youtube or Spotify:

Three key lessons from Patricio:

Critically examine where you are what you need and what you want.
Reach out and build a network, colleagues and UCL alumni.
Do everything to get noticed by a recruiter.

Messed Up! 20: Johanna Novales on Bringing change from within

Listen on Spotify:

Three key lessons from Johanna:

Find your allies - there will be people who understand what you're trying to do and who see the same problems as you do. That can be really helpful in terms of support for yourself and for seeding change.
Take note of the changes that you do make, however small they may be.
The world is a hard place to live right now so self-care is important. A lot of us have a baseline stress just based on being human in the year 2024. Just take yourself seriously.

Messed Up! 21:Enrico Mariconti on How to ~~train~~ your ~~dragon~~ supervisor

Listen on Spotify:

Three key lessons from Enrico:

Keep the communication going - even if it is just a few messages every once in a while because, in this way, you are always in that type of good spot.
Build that two way trust. The two-way trust is crucial and it mostly goes as you are building it both ways with the type of proactive behaviour.
Set expectations. The (PhD) mountain is really high and it takes time, effort and a decent amount of your mental health to climb it.

Messed Up! 22:Louise Baron on Messing up is in the PhD job description

Listen on Spotify:

Three key lessons from Louise:

Mess up more, commit to messing up and learning from the mess ups.
Remember your job is a contribution to knowledge: you should be able to make rational decisions, evaluate the research and be prepared to change your mind in the light of a new experience/knowledge.
The thesis is a product, and a statement of position supported by arguments and evidence.