Who are your supporters for your PhD?
Your supervisors, I hope! Your friends and colleagues from your department, probably. Academics you’ve met at conferences who keep in touch. Internet-people on Twitter and other networks who are part of your community. Friends and family who help you stay grounded. Maybe they don’t get what you do, but they help in other ways.
There are lots of ways people provide support. It all helps. Remember to say thank you!
I’m very grateful for how people have supported Viva Survivors since it began, but in particular since I started the daily blog in 2017. In April the daily blog will have been going for three years, and in a few days I’ll hit the 1000 post milestone!
I’m very grateful for the many ways that people have supported this blog:
- By telling others it exists!
- By sharing and retweeting posts that resonate.
- By using the resources I’ve made and buying ebooks.
- By subscribing so posts go straight to their inbox.
And in some cases, generously, by telling staff at their institutions about me, and helping me get hired to do viva prep sessions with PhD candidates. I meet nearly a thousand candidates a year that way.
Now there’s one more way you can support Viva Survivors. I’ve started a Ko-Fi page to give people – who want to – the opportunity to financially support the daily blog. Ko-Fi is a little like Patreon and other services; it’s a platform to connect people with supporters. Unlike other services though, Ko-Fi allows for one-off or regular support.
It takes a lot of time to write and publish a daily blog, but it also requires some money too. This blog and any resources will always be freely available: supporting with a £2 donation (one-off or regular) will help cover the running costs of the blog. As more and more people support the blog it could allow me time and resources to provide even more for free here. It could help me to reach more PhD candidates who need support themselves as they finish their PhD and prepare for their viva.
I’m exploring ways to say an extra thank you to supporters; to begin with, anyone who donates can access a free copy of my second ebook, The Viva: Who? What? How? after they’ve donated (details at the Ko-Fi page).
Thank you for reading this post. Thank you for reading my other posts, if you have. Thank you for subscribing – and if you’ve not subscribed to get my daily free posts in your inbox, you can do so here! Thank you for sharing my posts on Twitter and with friends. Thank you to those of you who say nice things about my writing or Viva Survivor sessions!
And if you are in a position to support the blog with a small donation, one-off or recurring, thank you. Thank you. You’re helping me to write more and do more and reach more PhD candidates looking for help with their vivas.
Thank you!
