Hello folks! It has been a while! Thank you for visiting the website again! As usual, if you want the key take away messages, just skip to the bottom of the page!
So, what have I been up to? Well, despite COVID-19, I finally managed to get married to my now-wife. It was a very small and intimate wedding (even more so because of COVID-19) and we had both of our parents and my best man Bill, and his wife Sue. It was a lovely ceremony and we had some great pictures. Now that we are officially married, I am changing my name (from Barnes to Piper), something which is more complicated and takes more time than you would like to think! We both appreciated the break from work, before returning to a sense of normality (whatever that is these days)! Like I said, I have now started the PhD, and boy has it been busy! Just for starters I have submitted my MSc thesis, my final piece of work for the degree! My first official day of my PhD was the 1st October (2020) and between then and now I have rammed as much content into my office hours as I can manage. (On a side note, now that I am working a typical working pattern my life feels in some sort of balance and I have even started doing some of the things I mentioned in my last entry!) As expected, the last two weeks have been crammed with inductions on what I and the other new PhD students are expected to do, as well as health and safety and COVID safety. In more exciting news, I have been invited to the Bangor University Social Neuroscience and Cognition (SNaC) seminars to present the work of my MSc. For anyone struggling with the idea of presenting their research at an external event, an internal event such as this is the perfect opportunity to practice your presentation skills! Alternatively, if you are in a lab with your PI and other students, a small event such as a lab discussion can also be beneficial. I am also planning to present the work to the stakeholders (i.e. the police, or more specifically, North Wales Police). Don’t forget, we (researchers) do the work for the public and for the stakeholders interested in our research, if we don’t tell them about it, then why bother? To my great pleasure, I also have a research plan going forward (and am applying to present this at the EPS conference in January), and have applied for ethical approval for my next study. I’ve been waiting a couple of days and it already feels like an eternity! This means I can program the study and start collecting data when it has been approved, so be prepared to see lots of adverts via social media! On top of this I have hundreds (slight hyperbole) of ideas for more follow up and new projects! The best part of this is really the encouragement from my supervisors, Dr. Paloma MariBeffa and Dr. Lara Maister. These guys are absolutely bonkers, and they are brilliant for it! At one point they were discussing secret handshakes and kidnapping me so I can’t share any secrets with outsiders. I’m certain the next 3 years will be filled with more insane interactions and I am incredibly lucky to have them as my supervisors! In other news, I have applied for an intern from Germany via the DAAD Rise Worldwide scholarship which is incredible! My project has been accepted for applicants to view! I have also signed up to I’m A Scientist (Twitter; @imascientist). I am thrilled to be applying for these sorts of projects and hope I will be able to spread some of my passion to the intern and kids (if my applications are successful)! I have also thrown my hat into the ring for year 1 PhD student representative for the department, so hopefully I can help make the experience of a PhD at Bangor, even more incredible! This ties into my teaching duties, and before I say anymore about this, readers should know I was absolutely terrified of teaching for the first time. I didn’t see how it would be possible for me to teach students, I thought I probably couldn’t do the work myself. As it turns out, when teaching my nerves weren’t too bad, and the students were excellent! Although teaching is part of the requirement whilst I study for my PhD, I had always wanted teaching experience and it really was a highlight for the week. A final note on what you can expect in the near future. Blog entries take a relatively long time to write, so although I had hoped to write one a week, it is more likely to be every 2-3 weeks (which will also give me more to talk about!). If you want more regular updates, I have started posting on Twitter (@HarryPiper) more often to form a more informal low-key diary of what I am up to! I also have a one-month review, so in the near future, I can stress about that and let you guys know about that experience! Take Away Messages: 1. Put yourself out there and network. 2. Build your confidence through small internal presentations and work up to bigger events. 3. Find research that makes you bristle with excitement – you don’t want to get bored! 4. Ethics applications take a good chunk of time to write (and probably longer to wait and have them approved). Keep this in mind. 5A. There are always useful things you can be working on. 5B. But this doesn’t mean you should be working 24/7/365. 6. Build a good working relationship with your supervisor. Your relationship is important. 7. Extra opportunities such as external programmes and teaching are a great opportunity to enhance your CV and will ultimately make you more employable. Seize this (and any other opportunity). 8. If you want something to change, apply for roles that give you the power to do so. If you know others who want things to change but who don’t believe they can make it change, direct them to these roles or help make their voice heard. As always everyone, don’t forget you can comment on this blog or alternatively you can use the Contact Page to find ways to connect with me! Take care and stay safe, Harry.
