Invitation from Emma England

Hello and Welcome! Are you a PhD student in any of the multitudinous fields within Biblical Studies? Do you want to be, or are you simply a Professor trying to supervise one (or five)? If so, this is the place for you.

As postgraduate students we are in a unique position with regard to our careers, social standing, level of education and lifestyle. This is often a fantastic experience, which is able to make us feel proud, happy and optimistic for our future. It can also create a strong and immediate bond between us; however, many of us study at home and have little or no access to other students. Some of us don’t live in the same town – or even country – as our institution and so we miss out on many of the benefits of being involved in an academic community. On the other hand, we are often working on some of the most groundbreaking work and some of us may be leaders in our field in the years to come. This blog will be about accessing information as well as the support of other students and even the odd Professor. Eventually we want this to become somewhere where you can develop a network for building your career and collaborative projects as well as a supportive place to discuss differences in education practices, funding, supervision styles and other practical aspects of being a graduate student.

This blog has been set up as a forerunner for a Postgraduate Forum for graduate students in the field of Biblical Studies. At least once a month a blog will appear on here discussing some aspect of life that influences us. The topics may include: finding funding, how to maintain a work/life balance and how to make the best of networks (of the human variety). On top of this we will hopefully have the odd ‘guest blog’ and relevant news including announcements for conferences, calls for papers, funding opportunities, research hints and so on. At the EABS conference in Vienna this July there will be an opportunity to discuss what you want from the Postgraduate Forum: maybe more of the same, maybe a discussion board, regular meetings or something else entirely – the choice will be yours.

Until our next blog, here are two places you can go for confidential and general support:
www.phinished.org, www.postgraduateforum.com

Thanks for reading, I look forward to hearing from you – oh, and feel free to leave a comment!

If you have any news, information and/or would like to contribute a guest blog please email me at: E.E.England@uva.nl In case you are wondering who I am, I am Emma, a part-time PhD student, a part-time Student Assistant and a part-time photocopy girl trying to find funding and get through the minefield of academic life without giving up my own.