This is the first of my monthly updates since finishing my PhD and starting my self-imposed career break. It just so happens that this coincided with an imposed worldwide lockdown, meaning I’m staying put here in the UK. Nevertheless, I’m hoping to use the time productively to put myself in a good long term position.
Here you can read about both my career plans and how I’d like to use my time at the moment.
Each month I’ll be sharing a post reflecting on what I was up to over the previous month and my plans for the month ahead. The idea is that this will keep me accountable, hopefully make for interesting reading as I progress, plus potentially lead to some new ideas or collaborations.
What I did in April:
Since this is my first post in the series I don’t have specific plans for April set out. Here you can read about my general short-term intentions.
This is roughly how I split my time, totalling around 123 hours “productively”:
Academic work
For the first week of April I was employed as a casual worker to work on some papers from my PhD. This follows on from March where, besides my viva, I worked full time on papers for the whole month. I worked on two papers during this period, one of which is under review and the other is being edited by co-authors.
I’ve been very fortunate that my supervisor has proactively insisted that I get paid for this: I imagine many would leave you to fend for yourself.
Of course, considering the majority of the work is already complete, it benefits both him and the university as a whole to reap publications for effectively very little outlay.
It would make sense to me for more universities to ensure that students are incentivised and enabled to publish papers in that tricky time around, and just after, finishing their PhD: I know of many studies which sadly go unpublished.
Publishing papers
Paper A
We submitted a paper just before Easter and within a week it was returned to us rejected. This wasn’t a massive surprise since the journal we were aiming for (Nature Biomedical Engineering) is very selective yet the reasoning for rejection was a bit frustrating.
Anyhow, at the end of April it was submitted to another journal, more targeted to our field, so hopefully it will fair better.
No matter where the paper is published, I’m hoping any revisions will not be too major. It goes without saying that nobody wants to have to make major revisions, but in addition to obviously requiring less time:
- I’ve finished and left the group: I can’t go back and do more experiments!
- My co-authors can’t carry out further experiments given the current situation.
- I can’t even remote access the main piece of software we used for this work, you need to physically be at the workstation to use the license dongle!
I’d hope that editors and reviewers are understanding given the current circumstances.
Additionally, not being employed, I don’t massively fancy doing a huge amount of work unpaid: my last set of revisions took a solid month of my time.
Paper B
Another paper is being reviewed by some co-authors ahead of being submitted in May. I spent about a week adding in feedback, including from my viva examiners.
Why am I still trying to publish things since I finished my PhD?
I feel like the whole point of doing research in the first place is to help the field, and science in general, to progress.
The fact that my PhD research was publicly funded is even more motivation to get things published. And yes of course if I stay in academia it also helps my career to have more papers published.
It doesn’t seem right to not publish the results and help future researchers. In an ideal world the research would all be open access so that everyone with an interest in science could read it. Nevertheless, let’s save a discussion about open access and journal paywalls for another time!
Volunteering
In April I signed up to be a Prince’s Trust Online Mentor. As of 3rd May it seems like the page has been taken down, hopefully temporarily. Update April 2021: Looks like it isn’t coming back sadly!
The idea is that I volunteer for a few hours a week and help a young person to progress their business idea over around six months.
I’m volunteering with the Prince’s Trust for a few reasons:
- It’s nice to be able to offer some help. Particularly at a time when we’re all stuck inside
- It sounds fun
- I’m sure I’ll learn a lot from the young person. Plus seeing the challenges other people have to overcome builds empathy, which we could with more of in this world
- It could be a useful experience for future jobs or projects
After a few hours training and sorting out references I’ve now been matched with a mentee and I am arranging our first remote meeting.
I’m really excited to get involved and giving help is always fulfilling.
The Prince’s Trust are desperate for mentors so if you’re able to commit a few hours a week why not consider volunteering yourself? (Again, at the time of writing it doesn’t seem to be offered, hopefully not for long)
The Savvy Scientist website
In April I published four posts:
- How to get published in Science or Nature
- PhD Profiles: Vivienne, 2nd Year in Materials Engineering at McGill University, Canada
- The unusual end to my PhD
- Beyond the PhD: my current and future plans
That still isn’t a huge number but it is more than any month during my PhD.
I’ve started reaching out to people for the PhD profiles series, for which I’d ideally like to run one each month.
It doesn’t come naturally to me to ask people for things or put myself out there, so it is great when people react so positively in offering to help. Please contact me if you are interested in helping with it.
In terms of metrics, in April there were 2516 unique page views by 1870 users. Clearly not a huge amount but every month the website is gaining traffic. Thankfully I’m not depending on the website so I’m not chasing numbers, though it would be good to make sure people can find it. I am starting to get some nice messages from people saying that the website is helping them which always make my day.
Currently one main post receives the majority of the traffic. Something I want to work on going forwards is diversifying this and reaching as many people as possible: this begins with writing more content.
As well as posting, I did some behind the scenes work improving SEO (search engine optimisation) for a few old posts, as well as starting a few online courses to help improve the website. I also learned about “Domain Authority” and that mine is very low!
I want to continue getting in a good habit of regularly creating good content to help readers.
Learning new skills
Computing
In April I started two Coursera courses:
- Learn to Program: The Fundamentals Completed weeks 1-5 (of 7)
- Machine Learning Completed week 1 (of 11)
I probably could have gone at a faster pace with the first course, which is about Python, but I figure I’d rather get a solid understanding of the fundamentals. Not least because I’ve got a lot of time on my hands!
I’m not sure if these skills will be useful to me in the future, but I’m keen to get at least a basic understanding. Papers like this amaze me.
Meditation
Meditation: I’ve begun using Headspace and managed 10 minutes of meditation for 26 of the 30 days in April.
I had tried meditating in the past but it never stuck. Adding it in to my morning routine just after making breakfast seems to have helped me remember to do it. It’s too early to tell if it’s helping my long-term mood and wellbeing, but I like how calm it helps me to become. Even momentarily.
Here’s hoping to get in a good routine and do it every day in May.
Time off
Reading
In April I finished two books:
- Shantaram – I’d recommend it though it is pretty long
- The Drama of Being a Child
There is a long list of books I’m keen to read and the list is constantly growing.
Unlike some of the other things I’m currently spending my time on, such as writing papers, reading can easily be done while travelling. Therefore I’m not spending as much time as I otherwise would on it at the moment.
After setting myself the challenge of reading two books per month in 2018 (all here), it’s nice to be able to carry this on, albeit not at all strictly.
Other fun stuff
Painting
I’ve made the odd birthday card in the past but never spent more than a few hours painting since I was in school. Between a few birthday and Easter cards I had a great time painting in April. In a similar way to reading and meditation, it’s such a great way to relax. Give it a go if you’ve not before!
Food growing
One of my favourite activities in London was helping out either at the local community garden at the weekends, or spending time at the university allotment. We’re lucky that my girlfriend’s family have access to an allotment a short walk away so we have been getting involved.
There is something magical about helping plants to grow, and it’s all the better when they produce tasty food. This month we planted some strawberry plants and lots of different vegetable seeds.
For more about my current living situation see here.
Time on my phone
I certainly don’t go on social media much, but I do sometimes spend a fair while playing games.
Since the start of the year, and through all of April, I spent longer than I care to work out playing Mario Kart on my phone: probably at least half an hour a day.
There isn’t much wrong with this, but I don’t actually always find it that fun and it’s more a habit that anything else. How about instead of spending time playing games I spent some time making games?
Monthly finances
With these posts I’ll also include how I’m making (and spending) money each month.
Academic employment
I did work for a week at the start of the month but that marks the end of my employment at the university: from now on I have no salary.
The money from my final week of work hasn’t yet come through but after taxes it’ll be something like £550 I expect.
I logged my hours for all of this casual working, but only after a month’s work did I realise I could only claim 35 hours a week: oops! Considering the money was frankly just a bonus, and that I wanted to get the work done even if I wasn’t getting paid, I didn’t particularly mind.
Before starting my PhD I finished my last job a few months early, but besides that I’ve had money coming in monthly for the past seven and a half years. Although I can afford to not have a salary coming in every month, it is a little disconcerting.
Online experiment participant
I have started trying out Prolific: an online research platform where you get paid for basically being a participant in a scientific study.
This is similar to market research and online questionnaires, but instead of helping a company improve a product you’re helping scientists with their research.
In April I spent a few hours on there and earned £29.98, around £10-12 an hour I’d guess, to help researchers. Once I’ve used it a bit more I’ll write a full post on whether or not it’s worth using.
Besides this small bit of work, and my academic earnings, I had no other income this month.
As I’ve previously outlined, at the moment I don’t want to get sidetracked making money and instead I am happy to concentrate on projects which don’t make any money.
Nonetheless, I’m always intrigued to try unconventional routes which I can share with everyone here.
Savings
There is no beating around the bush: I’m expecting an impending financial crash. COVID-19 is a contributor but this has been on the horizon for a while.
I used a bit of time in April to rebalance my savings to put myself in the best position. I won’t go into too much detail, though do let me know if you’d like more of this content.
Currently my savings are split between:
- Cash. Held in normal current and savings accounts, plus cash and lifetime ISAs. Cash is handy but interest rates are stupidly low.
This month I removed some cash from accounts which had matured after a year of getting high interest (more info here), in preparation for using this year’s Lifetime ISA allowance of £4000, getting a £1000 bonus.
I also spent some time going through all of my matched betting accounts and transferring cash to my current account. There is no point in it sitting there, especially when there is a risk of these businesses closing down.
- Financial assets. Ethical stocks and bonds, split something like 70:30 (info here). The markets are down against the start of the year and I wouldn’t be surprised if they still have a way to fall.
I don’t bother paying much attention to fluctuations and simply invest monthly in a diverse range of products. Even most of the experts can’t outperform this method.
- Peer to peer loans. This is the one I’m worried about.
I’ve been investing across the main peer to peer platforms (Zopa, Ratesetter, Funding Circle) for years and have done well, but the whole concept of peer to peer banking is untested during a financial crash.
I’ve requested withdrawals on basically all of my money for the time being, simply because for me it’s not worth the risk.
Outgoings
I’m paying my girlfriend’s parents £100 a month to cover rent and bills.
On top of this are food costs (approximately £130) and other expenses such as my phone contract and charity donations which I explained here (which come to under £100).
Without a job I’d usually recommend to minimise expenses, but I feel that now more than ever it’s important to carry on supporting charities. These costs don’t include this website which is currently costing me more to run than it makes.
Going forwards I’d ideally like to earn enough to cover my expenses, but I’m not going to stress. The money I earned working in March and the start of April will cover my expenses for the rest of year.
April Summary
I’m really happy with how April went.
Considering that I actually have no commitments to hold me to account, I achieved most of the things I wanted to, whilst finding time to relax. I still do struggle slightly to completely switch off and just do fun things in the moment: something I want to work on in May!
Thinking about it, being a PhD student was pretty good practice for spending all of my time working for myself. You have to deal with managing your own time whilst doing work you find interesting.
The difference though is having a supervisor to regularly check in with definitely held me to account during the PhD, and now I don’t have that interaction. Hopefully charting my goals and progress here will keep me motivated, time will tell!
My Plans for May
Academic work:
I have another one (or potentially two) papers up for grabs. I’d like to spend at least two [unpaid] days in May working on the first of these papers.
The Savvy Scientist website:
At the moment I tend to draft posts and publish them weekly on Thursdays, but I don’t have any scheduled. It would be great to have a month of future posts scheduled.
This month I’d therefore like to focus my energy on building up a bank of scheduled posts: publishing four and having another four scheduled to get me ahead.
There is an ever growing list of posts to write, if you have any specific content you’d like to see please let me know!
Skills:
In May I want to finish the Coding Fundamentals course and get another week or two of the Machine Learning course done too to keep that ticking over.
I’m also signed up for this webinar: AI and Engineering for Healthcare Crises: Rapid Response Strategies for Covid-19.
I want to do more courses, including app development, but I have plenty of time so will start this another month.
Moving from the virtual world to the physical world, I’m planning to start learning to play the piano. This wasn’t something I ever thought I’d do, but my partner bought a keyboard so I’m going to start playing an instrument for the first time.
I thought it could be interesting to see how quickly I can progress over 30 days. Since I wanted to learn how to make videos, this could be my first one. Who knows whether or not I’ll want to share it!
Finances:
In May I’ll carry on trying out Prolific, and have signed up to a few other platforms which I’ll share my thoughts on.
Secondly, I have a few things to de-clutter and sell on eBay. Thankfully before leaving London I was really successful downsizing my belongings whilst making a fair amount of money on eBay (post detailing it is here). In moving house I uncovered a few extra things to sell so would like to list them for sale in May.
Fun stuff:
As I write this at the start of May I’m midway through reading Alice in Wonderland and it has made me want to try doing some fiction writing. Having read lots of fiction over recent years (see here), it’s previously crossed my mind that I’d like to do some writing for the first time since school. Spending a day out of the month writing doesn’t sound like an awful idea.
I’m enjoying this opportunity to spend time developing and working on new projects and I hope it is interesting to read about.
As always let me know if you have any ideas or suggestions for new content you’d like to see here. To stay up to date you can subscribe here:
