CDT Student Away Day - February 2025 - Gabriella Williams

On the 26th of January, I attended my first student CDT representative meeting, and it was there that Stephen Cook, Taylor Robinson, and I agreed to co-host the 2025 student away day event on the 24th of February 2025. As each week was rapidly going by, drip drip dripping like water drops from a semi-closed bathroom tap, we were under time constraints as to how we would organise the event. We sent out surveys and Google polls about what topics people wanted to discuss regarding the CDT procedures and the journey of embarking on a PhD. Eventually, we were able to create an agenda on the topics that CDT students were most concerned about.

The weeks were fast approaching, and suddenly, it was the 24th of February. It seemed like the concept of time had become more of an alien idea as I and other PhD students continued to suffer under the hustle and bustle of neo-liberal, techno-feudalist capitalism of western society. Unfortunately, I couldn’t attend in person, but I did attend online, and the first topic we discussed was internships. The conversation was fruitful, albeit at times quite tumultuous, as we talked about how to look for internships, including going on specific websites to scour the internet, but also how generative AI makes the dynamic of applying for jobs online significantly more difficult as many companies employ ATS (applicant tracking software) that help manage businesses' job applicants' information more efficiently and smoothly. This also means that you can be screened out of the application process if your cover letter or CV is not ATS-friendly. We also discussed networking as another possible way to land an internship, but the idea of struggling to secure a low-paid internship, feeling the weight of a turbulent job market and facing huge amounts of online rejections, is enough to stop me from networking altogether.

Our second topic that we voraciously conversed about was going part-time on our PhDs. Subject matters like where to go if we wished to go part-time for whatever reason or how to refute any issues if supervisors or the CDT director had concerns about us taking our PhD from full-time to part-time. Whilst we were on the topic of supervisory communication with us PhD students, that was our third topic that we had chewed over. It was a contentious topic to converse about — PhD students sat in a small room, pouring out their hearts, worn down by issues they had with controlling supervisors and how we should resolve such issues. I’m very lucky in this regard, as I have very understanding and supportive supervisors, but listening to other CDT students moan about their controlling and slightly neurotic supervisors being emotionally abusive about their research topics made me quite forlorn but also irritated, honestly. Maybe it’s because I grew up in a household where honesty was encouraged, but I couldn’t, for the life of me, understand why these students were just allowing their supervisors to steamroll them on research topics or choice of methodology. I quickly realised, however, that for PhD students, their supervisor's approval meant everything to them, even if it meant giving up on personal integrity. (I’m not judging, by the way — I’ve been guilty of acting like this in the past. This also doesn’t include the very real power dynamics between supervisor and PhD student that can be exploited and misused.)

Staying on the topic of maintaining your personal integrity, the last topic we refreshingly discussed was life after a PhD and how to stay grounded throughout these transformative four years, marked by both challenges and achievements. This conversation was like making lemonade out of lemons. Although the previous conversations had been marked by strife, concerns, and uncertainty, this last topic kept it grounded and hopeful. Tips about how to reduce anxiety and ensure that we spent time cultivating our hobbies, reaching out to other students in the cohort to have a chit-chat, as well as general time management skills on how to handle workload and essential preparation — whether or not we should remain in academia or go into industry — were shared. The student away day reminded me that we were all in the same cramped boat, sailing away on a unique but also transformative journey of being a CDT student.



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