Blog
Insights and reflections
On identity, achievement, and the risk of becoming one’s career
From the outside, my career always appeared to be progressing well. Grants, awards, recognition, conferences, articles, book chapters, exchange programmes, trips to Europe—the external markers of success were all present. Yet there is a side of this st...
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The leverage question: on strategic focus in doctoral work
One of the best pieces of advice for a new doctoral scholar is also one of the least intuitive: do not confuse busyness with effectiveness. Over the years, I have observed a pattern that repeats itself across disciplines and institutions. Most PhD stud...
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Raising resilient learners in an age of Artificial Intelligence
Artificial intelligence has already entered the classroom, though not always explicitly. Many students use these tools to complete assignments more quickly, to generate ideas, to manage their schedules, or simply to find answers. A recent study from th...
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Beyond the production line: On the true purpose of engineering education
Within a faculty of engineering at a public university in Mexico, a tension grows increasingly difficult to ignore. On one side stands the legitimate need to train engineers capable of responding to the demands of the labour market, industry, and busin...
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Education as liberation: On thinking, dissent, and the failure of obedience
What is education for? This question haunts every educator, every policymaker, and every parent. The answer we give determines not only the structure of our schools and universities, but the very shape of our society. There exists, at present, a domina...
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The quiet normalisation of suffering
In the contemporary academic landscape, a particular form of suffering has become so quietly normalised that it no longer provokes surprise. It is the suffering born of a hierarchical structure in which one person—a supervisor, a principal investigator...
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The hidden calculus of the doctorate
Clarity of purpose is not a luxury in academic life; it is a necessity. Without a lucid and deeply internalised vision of why one undertakes this journey—whether at the doctoral or postdoctoral stage—the inevitable difficulties multiply, momentum falte...
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The great disconnect: when the world advances and education remains on the platform
Imagine a surgeon from 1975 waking up in a contemporary operating theatre. Confronted with touchscreens, surgical robots, and real-time MRI imaging, their expertise would instantly seem anachronistic. In contrast, were a teacher from the same era to op...
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On privilege, perseverance, and the unseen work
A recent, pointed confrontation with a colleague serves as the impetus for this reflection. They charged that my research trajectory has been built upon a foundation of notable and unfair privilege. The remark was not an observation but an accusation—a...
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Navigating the supervisory relationship
One of the most challenging, yet least openly discussed, aspects of the doctoral journey is the relationship with one’s supervisor. This dynamic extends far beyond mere research guidance; it involves navigating power structures, communication styles, a...
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The productivity paradox
The diagnosis The common interpretation of stalled progress is a deficit of discipline. In reality, the core issue is frequently one of cognitive overload. An excess of concurrent deadlines, combined with the pervasive pressure of academic comparison, ...
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The unwitnessed labour
The most demanding phases of an academic career are often the most invisible. This truth resonates profoundly during the doctoral journey, yet it persists with startling continuity into the postdoctoral sphere. One discovers that the world readily appl...
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Retrospective insights from the doctoral journey
The doctoral journey presents a landscape of unspoken challenges that often remain obscured by formal academic structures. What follows are seven hard-won truths, learned through experience that exacted a considerable toll in stress, burnout, and self-...
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The unwritten curriculum
The most undervalued competency in academic development is not a methodological technique but a strategic practice: the disciplined art of refusal. Researchers often succumb to the peril of perpetual assent, accepting every request, invitation, and opp...
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On unsettling orthodoxy
Academia thrives not on consensus, but on disciplined dissent. The unchallenged assumptions that underpin scholarly life do more than shape individual experience; they define the very boundaries of permissible thought. To leave these premises unexamine...
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The unspoken purpose of doctoral work
When I first entered graduate school, I carried the assumption that one must produce a groundbreaking contribution to knowledge—something monumental, field-altering, even revolutionary. This belief, I confess, weighed heavily upon my early research end...
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Academic exhaustion
Our scholarly discourse increasingly centres on depletion: the scarcity of time, the weight of unrelenting demands, the quiet despair of measuring intellectual labour against institutional metrics. While "burnout" is readily diagnosed, one must interro...
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Common pitfalls in the thesis process
Sometimes, the greatest obstacle to completing a thesis is not your supervisor or the academic system—it is yourself. This is not necessarily a matter of fault or failure, but rather of awareness. Many doctoral students, often without realising it, ado...
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A scholar’s guide to steering your PhD advisor
First, acknowledge that your PhD supervisor is not your employer. Instead, consider strategies to manage this relationship proactively and to derive maximal benefit from their expertise. Here, I share my perspective and recount my experience as a docto...
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When 'You can do anything' shackles us
Positive psychology and new-age spiritualities have sold us a seductive fantasy: that desire alone can shape reality. "Visualize your goals", "believe in yourself", "the universe conspires in your favor". But this mantra of "you can do anything" is a t...
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And then I chose the PhD
I believed music was my destiny, but I ended up at an engineering school, thinking that being a good son and the grandmother’s favourite grandson was reward enough. I studied machines and processes, learnt to master tools to manufacture, create, modif...
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This life
I'm observing my peers, Out in the world, finding their gears. When they inquire about me, "I'm deep in a PhD, Solar thermal engineering, you see." "Hey, I hear you've moved up the block. What's this thing called a 'postdoc'?" When they touch base wit...
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Perseverance amidst familial criticism
Embarking on a journey of intellectual exploration, I wholeheartedly embraced the pursuit of a PhD, recognizing it as a pathway to personal growth and professional fulfilment. However, my decision to dedicate myself to this scholarly pursuit had not ga...
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The 'struggle' of being a PhD student
Being a PhD student is not for the faint of heart. The decision to do a postgraduate course implies a challenge in itself. It means a constant struggle to practice a profession that, despite being necessary for the common good, is not fairly valued in ...
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The third floor
Is this what it feels like? I asked myself as I walked the last few blocks back to the gloomy flat that, for now, I call home. Countless errors, countless horrors, countless doubts, and countless fears. We are acutely aware of the passage of time, and ...
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