I’m popping a content warning at the top of this one: I’m going to talk about mental health and quitting the PhD. If that’s not good for you to read right now, feel free click away. As lockdown closed on Australia in March, I posed a question: should you quit (go part time or pause) your […] … learn more→

Since coronavirus forced the switch to remote learning, I have seen many universities share infographics and statistics about their online teaching. These self-congratulatory messages highlight how vast numbers of courses, video lectures and online sessions have been delivered by a large number of faculty and attended by a much larger number of students. However, I […] … learn more→

As Lenin put it, there are decades when nothing happens and then weeks when decades happen. And we aren’t out of the woods yet. In fact, we are still heading inwards. For universities and students, hopes of a return to normal campus life in the autumn term are long gone, and hopes for a return […] … learn more→

A number of American colleges and universities have decided to bring students back to campus this fall, believing they can diminish the risk of coronavirus transmission if everyone wears masks, uses hand sanitizer and social distances. Some schools also plan to reconfigure dorms to create family-sized clusters of uninfected students, who could socialize in relative safety, if […] … learn more→

“If there’s something strange in your neighbourhood, who you gonna call?!” Or, more aptly, if you want to protect your neighbourhood from, what would you definitely need? I think that any solution must include a well-tested alarm system to call attention, a sizeable group of expert firemen, and a whole lot of water. I suppose […] … learn more→