2.17 How the PhD Life Coach university membership supports students

0:02

Hello and welcome to the PhD Life Coach, where we help you get less overwhelmed, stop beating yourself up, and start living the life you want. I'm your host, Dr Vicki Burns, ex professor and certified life coach. Whether you're a brand new PhD student or an experienced academic, I'm here to show you that thriving in academia can be a whole lot easier than it feels right now. Let's go.

Vikki: 0:29

Hi everyone. And welcome to episode 17 of season two of the PhD Life Coach. And I have guests with me again this week. This time I have Tara and Danielle. Tara who is the Head of Grad School at the University of Birmingham, and Danielle, who is one of the PhD students that is part of my PhD Life Coach membership. So, Tell us a bit about yourself, Tara. I'll start with you first. Tell us a bit about what you do and maybe the moment that brought you to where you are at the moment. Okay, um,

Tara: 1:01

So as you said, I'm Head of the University Graduate School. The Graduate School at Birmingham supports both postgraduate researchers and postgraduate taught students. We lead on the postgraduate student experience at an institutional level. We offer a range of social, academic, and wellbeing activities throughout the year. So trying to create those opportunities for postgraduates to meet each other, develop their skills, showcase the amazing work that they're doing, and access support as well. I've worked at the university for nearly 10 years now, and prior to that I was a student with a little bit of gap in between and I've been in this role for just over two years.

Vikki: 1:39

What brought you here? What made you want to do postgrad development?

Tara: 1:42

I kind of fell into doing postgraduates, as a focus, but I've worked with postgraduates, as a key part of my role for about the last eight years now, and so it's definitely an area that I really enjoy working in, love hearing about all the work that postgraduate researchers are doing.

Vikki: 2:01

Fantastic. That's what I love about it as well. Whenever I do workshops, I get the students to tell me specifically what they're researching at the beginning. Not like I'm a geography student or whatever, but specifically what they're researching. And there's such a mass, especially at a big university like Birmingham, there's such a huge array of things going on. It's really cool. So how about you, Danielle? Tell us a bit about you.

Danielle: 2:21

Oh, hi. Yeah. Well, thank you so much for having me on, Vikki. I'm a final year PhD student at the University of Birmingham. I say final year. I was in my third year. I've now sort of gone into my fourth year. but thanks to the coaching, I'm not being so hard on myself about that, but I can get into that later. My research background is mainly philosophy. And so my PhD is focused on philosophy of education and it's about methods of preventing extremism in schools and critiquing some of the current methods, and exploring the idea of whether teaching children philosophy could have any effect on building resilience to extremism.

Vikki: 3:01

This is why I love asking people about their topics because people are doing such interesting important things. What brought you to that?

Danielle: 3:09

You know, to be honest, I'm kind of one of those annoying people that fell into it a little bit. It wasn't like the PhD was my dream goal. I loved doing philosophy at university. I ended up being lucky enough to do a master's in philosophy, and it was through that that my passion for it really started to grow even more. And I had the supervisor, for my dissertation who really, really believed in me. I think he could probably see something that I couldn't, and then my supervisor took me aside one day and said, there's this scholarship in Birmingham that I think you'd find really interesting, and then I applied for it thinking it's worth a try. If you don't try, nothing will happen. And then I, I got it and I just couldn't believe it. And I thought, Oh my, oh my goodness, I'm going to Birmingham.

Vikki: 3:56

For anyone watching this on YouTube, you'll see me smirking and the reason I'm smirking is because both of you have talked about falling into your roles and both of you have then, without noticing the irony, talked about all the reasons why you were perfectly qualified for the role that came along and that you've ended up being really good at. There's a whole bunch of coaching we could do around this story of, Oh, I just fell into it. I just happened to fall into it where there was a member of staff who knew who I was, thought I was really good and I'd done a bunch of research on this before, but yeah, yeah. I just fell nothing. I did but that's a conversation for another day. So back to Tara then. What issues do you see amongst your postgrad community? What difficulties do you see people having?

Tara: 4:43

I think it's well documented that doing a PhD can be really challenging and by its nature is demanding. It can also be isolating because, doing a PhD quite often, well, depending on discipline, but quite often the PhD researcher is working independently. We know that that can create some common challenges so loneliness, we know that our PGRs come from all different backgrounds, and it may be that they're older and they might be working alongside doing a PhD, they might have a family and a mortgage. So managing the balance between doing a PhD and everything else going on in their lives. Obviously some PGRs have a scholarship and funding but others are self funded and even those who have a scholarship with everything that's going on in the world at the moment, we know, that some people might be struggling with finances and also sometimes establishing and maintaining a good relationship with their supervisor. We know that that's such a key relationship. Sometimes that relationship is really good and sometimes there can be difficulties along the way and all of that can come together to potentially have negative impact on mental health and confidence which is why we think the coaching can help with some of those things.

Vikki: 6:01

Yeah, for sure. Do you recognize that stuff amongst yourself and your cohort and things, Danielle? Are there other things you see?

Danielle: 6:08

Yes, certainly. I recognize it in myself and just through many interactions with some of my peers, you know. Um, I think especially the isolation part, I hear that a lot and I definitely experienced it, probably more towards the start of my PhD journey, but I think just the fact that you're researching something so specific, and you don't necessarily have classes to go to where you're seeing people regularly, where you maybe would start to make some friends because you see people and, you know, you see them maybe once a week and you start to go, Oh, hi, again, you know, and build that up. But you don't really have that regularity when you're doing a PhD. It's just kind of you at home at your laptop, researching away um, and if there are events, they're kind of quite spread out and far apart. So it's, it's hard to build connections that way. Yeah, and the financial strain as well. I mean, I'm extremely lucky that my PhD is funded. That funding is now running out, but there's plenty of people do a PhD and it's, it's not. And they have to balance that with trying to get some sort of income to support themselves, doing this thing that they're not getting paid for and the amount of work that a PhD takes, you know, you really, you, you probably should be getting paid to be doing all that work. But yes, it can be, it can be a real strain, I think and especially one thing I've found extremely helpful is talking to other PhD students because there's no one else that really is going through what you're going through. Even if your research is different, you're still, you can still relate on so many things that, you know, it is quite a unique experience. Compared to sort of, other jobs or things like that. And it's always so cathartic to speak to other PhD students and you're just like, me too, oh my god, you know. So, but yeah, as I say, it's sometimes hard to find that.

Vikki: 8:04

Yeah, no, for sure. And I recognize all of those things from the clients that I work with. The other one that I see a lot is a PhD is really that period where you go from being someone who's researching research that other people have done, and kind of summarizing and critiquing to some extent to really putting this is my position and why it's my position. This is the data I've collected and the argument I'm making and that transition is a real kind of identity shift really turning into a researcher. And that's something I see people really struggle with. People are saying not only is it a lot to do and I'm not sure whether I'm good enough, but who am I to be putting that position out into the world? There's so many like big clever researchers out there and I'm just little me, and that's a real transition. And then I also see with We have a lot of part time students who come to the membership. And those who are listening, we've been referring to this membership kind of obliquely. We will explain that in a second, what that entails. Um, but we have a lot of part time students and people who are doing professional doctorates and those sorts of things where they're doing it alongside a job. And there, there's a real identity shift that they're confident and professional and senior in their working life. And now they're essentially a kind of beginner researcher in an academic world, and there's an awful lot of sort of, oh I know how to write like this and I know how to organize myself over there. But I don't know how to do it in an academic environment. And so that's something that I see a lot of people struggling on that I don't think is always looked after and supported very easily by universities. Um, so, before we explain what the membership is, Tara, why even did you think this is such an important community to support?

Tara: 9:57

So our thinking was that there's obviously a lot of well being support available at the university, but we felt that it would be beneficial to have something that was really tailored to PhD researchers and their particular pinch points and challenges and that that could potentially be best delivered by someone who had experience of academia like yourself. And that's what really prompted us to bid for some money to be able to develop a program of activity specifically tailored to PhD researchers. The other aspect to this is it's trying to put something in place to help support people and to act as sort of early intervention before it contributes to or becomes a bigger issue, potentially a mental health crisis ultimately. And we felt that this could fill the gap between the day to day support that a PGR might get from their supervisor, and the support that they might get from wellbeing services and counselling etc at the university. And this is something that comes in between of those two things and adds that extra layer of support.

Vikki: 11:06

Yeah, absolutely. And why are they an important population, Danielle, do you think? Why are you important to the population?

Danielle: 11:14

I, I guess we're kind of, as, as PhD students, we're kind of potentially your next colleagues. If you know what I mean, from the perspective of the academics in the university, we're the next generation of potentially your colleagues or people going out into the world with really, really important research that could have an impact. And there's potentially going to be research output from those PhD students, which is good for the uni, you know, I've, I've got a publication and it's affiliated with the University of Birmingham. So, the university ought to care about their PhD students because they could be contributing to the research output, which universities really care about. And I just think it's important to prioritize their mental health, considering, um, like you say Tara, their challenges are maybe a bit different from other sort of levels of university. You know, you're going to face different challenges than an undergraduate might, or even a master's student, because during my master's, I did really well. My, my writing was always, um, received really well. And then at PhD level, I was writing in the same way and suddenly it just wasn't, it really wasn't up to scratch. And I thought, oh my goodness, this is a, this is a completely different ballgame. This is a different level. So yeah, I think it's, it's important to sort of have something tailored to the challenges you would face as a PhD student, just because it is it is different.

Vikki: 12:44

Yeah, definitely. I just think PhD students are so fundamental to so much of university strategies, because, as you say, it's not just that you contribute to research, often in a lot of topics, you're the ones doing the research. So certainly on the more science and engineering end of things is often the PhD students that are actually collecting the data that then underpins the grant applications, underpins the publications and those sorts of things. So they contribute enormously to the research activity of the university. You know, most supervisors and lecturers will accept they can't do this stuff without you. Certainly on that side of the university, it's slightly different potentially in sort of the more arts and humanities subjects, but then at the same time, you know, you're a student body, you're not employed to do our research for us, you're here to train and learn and develop. And I actually think, even before the membership Birmingham was really good at this, but there can be a tendency for phD students to fall down the cracks, that there aren't as many of you as there are undergrads, and so undergrads get lots of support lots of attention, lots of thinking about how we can do that well, and then lots of attention on research and how we can do that well, and there can be a tendency to forget the support that's needed in the middle. And I think what you were saying, Tara, about where there's this gap between supervisors and what they provide, wellbeing and what they provide, and of course, we can't forget to mention the huge array of skills based training that's available at Birmingham and other universities. But in the middle of that, there's this gap where the students aren't necessarily in need of specific mental health wellbeing support, but they're procrastinating more than they'd like to. They're getting overwhelmed more than they want to. They think they're the only ones that feel like this. They know there's a bunch of ways they could get technical support for things, but they don't necessarily feel like they've got time or brain space to engage with things. And that's the sort of little zone that I think coaching fits in so well. So maybe now would be a good time for me just to give the listeners a bit of a summary of what we do. at Birmingham. So it's been running at Birmingham since February, this year and it started out for the first six months, students got, access to two sessions of online group coaching a week. So they would dial in on Tuesdays, there would be a specific topic. So it would be a thought you might be having, like I have too much to do or something. There'll be a little bit of input from me, discussion in the chat and so on. And then people have the opportunity to come on for one to one coaching. So imagine you're in your Zoom room, you can only see me, there's a bunch of people in there and people taking turns to come on. They appear like this next to me, like Danielle is now, and we have a conversation about something that's specific to Danielle, but everybody else watches and has the opportunity to think about how that applies to them. And I'll ask you in a minute, Danielle, what you've got out of watching other people because I think that's a really important part of it. So the Tuesday session has a topic to it. Thursdays is just open coaching and students sign up for the membership and they just get put into a Slack channel and then they have access to all the information so they can come and go as much as they want. Some students come almost every session. Other students come in when it's necessary for them when they're struggling with something. So that was how it ran February through June. And then we decided at the beginning of the academic year that we would also embed my workshops. So some of you listening will know I run, two hour workshops on particular topics, like how to write when you're struggling to write and things like that, that I offer to other universities as like one off options. We've embedded those into the membership as well. So throughout this academic year, The students get one monthly workshop and the two sessions of coaching a week as well. And that's an opportunity to do a kind of more in depth dive into a specific topic that really teaches some more tools. So there is still coaching, but it's more workshop, more input from me. And so that's how the membership works. The university pay for it on a monthly basis, which means that it's free at the point of use for all PhD students in the university and so there's no, you know, it's, it's equitable in that sense. There's no sort of thing as to whether students can afford to invest in things for themselves, it's overall provision for the university. So, I mean, let's go Danielle first. So what do you feel like you've got out of it so far?

Danielle: 17:24

I think I've, I've got an awful lot out of it to be very honest and I was chuckling to myself when you said it started in February, because it was almost like divine intervention or something, whether or not, you know, anyone believes in that. But around February time was a time when I was really, really struggling, so it couldn't have come at a better time. I'd had to cut a huge portion of my thesis out, just because it wasn't really working for the thesis. I've kind of You know, brought myself round to it, but at the time it was a big kind of kind of shock to the system. I just felt like, oh my god, you know, I've got a year left and I'm having to start again, essentially. So that along with some other things I was just really struggling I think with my confidence, with my self belief. I really was not feeling very happy a lot of the time because I think as a PhD student a lot of your happiness tends to come from how well you're doing at this PhD which probably isn't right, you know, just because maybe something over there isn't going so well doesn't mean you don't deserve to kind of take care of yourself or, you know, have other nice things happen. But I guess the sort of unhealthy mindset I was in was if I'm not doing well at this PhD, then I don't really deserve to enjoy anything else and it was my supervisor who said, have you heard about this And I said, no, actually I haven't. And she said, I think it would be really useful for you. You should have a look into it. I then sort of started going to some of these coaching sessions and I think I felt quite motivated to do so because I knew I wasn't in a great place and I thought, well, at this point I'll, I'll try anything, you know, I really need to try and get my confidence up here because while I've always had a harsh inner critic and sometimes that leads to good work, at this point, it was just a barrier. It was really becoming a barrier to me getting anything done and making any progress. So I started going to these coaching sessions and pretty quickly I started to find it really helpful. Just kind of thinking about the way Vikki sort of separates the situation from the thoughts that you're having. And I think one of the first times I interacted with Vikki the one to one session, and I was kind of terrified. I thought, oh, I don't want to put my hand up. I look so weird. My hair is a mess. And then it was almost like she read my mind or something because she said, you know, this is not about, this is not like a fashion show. We're just we're all here to support each other. And I just thought, yeah, okay, right. That's fine. But I'll just go on. And it was just the way I started to explain what I was thinking about what my challenges were, and then Vikki sort of challenged those thoughts that I was having, you know, and sort of asked me questions like, and how do those thoughts make you feel regardless of you know, whether they're true or not, how does that make you feel and what effect is that having on you? And it really sort of got me to wake up a bit at the sort of things I was saying to myself and it almost kind of hurts in a way where, you know, someone points out, you're really not being very nice to yourself, you know, you're quite hard on yourself. And you go, Oh, actually, yeah, um, I'm not actually being very nice to myself at the moment. Let's think about that. Let's look at that. So over time, I really tried to internalize those things. And I think by doing more and more coaching and, you know, just turning up whenever I could, if there was space in my schedule or my diary, I would just pop in because the benefits I got from it would then motivate me to, I'd probably get more stuff done, like if I didn't go for those two hours and just worked, I'd still be feeling maybe not necessarily in the best place, but if I went for, you know, the hour or two hour session, I'd then feel really motivated and I'd You know, nine times out of ten do work after I'd been, whereas maybe that would, that day could have been a write off otherwise. And the more and more sessions you go to, the more and more you start to get into the habit of challenging those thoughts and then when they come in, you're more likely to notice them. Instead of just believing them right away, they just, you know, you're more likely to go, hang on a minute. Why am I saying that to myself? Let's look at the evidence for why that actually isn't true. So, yeah, needless to say, I have found them very helpful. And yeah, there's some challenges that have come up recently that I think if I hadn't had those things in place, maybe would have knocked me down, you know, but they, they didn't. And I was surprised and I thought, okay, I can handle more stuff now. This is good.

Vikki: 22:01

Oh, it's so nice to hear. It's like, you know, when you know that's why you do something and you're like, yeah, this is exactly what it's meant to do, but you still hear it. And you're like, that's so nice. And a little bit more about what you got out of watching other people getting coached. Cause the thing is lots of people listening to this will be familiar with the notion of one to one coaching that you get like six sessions or whatever, and you deal with a Providing it for every PhD student in the university throughout their entire PhDs. But it can be really, really powerful. And sometimes people think that the online group coaching is a bit of a kind of like a less good version of that, and I think you get tons out of watching other people and I'd love to hear your perspective on that, Danielle

Danielle: 22:51

Yeah, I think you get a lot from from watching other people. On the one hand, you might see someone being coached who has very similar struggles to yourself, and then you can sort of translate that into your own life and your own challenges and take that advice on board. Um, but also what I find interesting is when you watch someone who has a completely different challenge to you, and initially you might think, oh, I don't have that, that problem. But as you delve into it, you sort of see that the root of it is kind of similar. Like one example, and you know, I won't name names or anything. But I remember one, one girl came on and she was sort of struggling with working too much, you know, and she couldn't stop working and she couldn't separate work from fun things. And she was just at her desk all day, constantly working. And initially, I must admit, I felt a little bit envious. I thought, I wish I had that problem. I wish I, I couldn't stop working and, and, you know, making so much progress. But then as we delved into it, I realized that we did have similarities in that she couldn't separate work from, you know, having fun and things. I thought, okay, while I'm not necessarily sitting, writing and working all day, I am thinking about it all day and all night and I can't really separate. And you know, enjoy the fun thing because I feel guilty that I'm not doing work, and also a lot of similarities just around not feeling like anything's ever good enough or sort of lacking in confidence and things like that. So, while initially I thought, oh, we don't have the same burdens, it came to be that actually there were a lot so I ended up getting a lot from it. and also I think it's nice when you're seeing someone being coached to kind of, you know, without kind of interrupting too much put little messages in the chat and sort of say, Oh, I've been there. I've been there. And, you've got this and good luck. And there's just a lot of support. I think like, you know, when I was coached, you'd notice little messages popping up from people just being really supportive. So, yeah, I think, I think you get a lot from, from seeing other people being coached.

Vikki: 25:03

And I think that's so interesting. I love that example because I think it really illustrates the issue because when people, we call it coach on the action line. So when people only focus on the behaviors that somebody is doing, you would think that somebody who isn't doing enough work needs completely different help than someone who's doing too much work. If you're focused on behaviors, you'd have them in two completely different workshops, but actually both can come, as you say, from believing nothing you do is good enough, because some people, when they believe nothing that they do is good enough, feel disenchanted and the way they enact those feelings is by avoiding their work and avoiding their supervisor and procrastinating and all of these things. Other people respond to those thoughts and feelings with what we often call frantic action, the kind of not necessarily productive, certainly not healthy, sort of like, must just keep doing things and then it'll be fine kind of approach to stuff, when actually their problem isn't overworking or underworking. Their problem is this belief that nothing that they do is good enough. And that that is a big problem, that that's not just an area of growth. That means something about them and their future and their abilities and all of that stuff. So actually they need the same things. It just manifests in different ways. And I think that's where, when you're on the more kind of thoughts and feelings ends of coaching, you really get to that stuff.

Danielle: 26:30

I think it's also helpful when you see someone who's maybe just started the coaching, like maybe you've been to a few sessions, and then you see someone who's never been coached. And I think it's a nice opportunity in a way to see how far you've come, because you see someone that's still maybe really struggling with confidence or really struggling with something that you previously in We're really struggling with and sometimes seeing that can just sort of inspire you to to realize I remember when I felt like that, you know, and look how far I've come. I'm still, there's still challenges, of course, but, you know, I've managed to work through that. And then you have something else to give where you can then offer support and reassurance to that person.

Vikki: 27:11

And that's so valuable as well. So we've had three regulars, I think now hand in their thesis and over the last couple of months, one slightly earlier than that. And a couple of them still come to the sessions preparing for their viva and career planning and all that. And it's so nice when somebody's going, because I'm like this, I'll never finish my thesis. And that's their absolute true belief. And then having one of the regulars in the chat going, I believed that for ages and I submit ed mine and it was actually okay. And then you're like, Oh, really? Okay. And so, yeah, having that almost generations of people going for, even just in this short period of time that we've been doing it, having that sort of generations has been really, really lovely to see. So Tara, what do you see and hear about how people benefit from the membership?

Tara: 28:02

So the broader feedback we've got very much reflects some of the things that Danielle's talked about. People have talked about how it's helped to motivate them, how it's helped to build their confidence, and given them the skills to navigate some of the challenges that arise from time to time. We've definitely heard people talk about how they found it beneficial to hear from others who are experiencing the same thing, And I think that really helps people to know that they're not alone and they're not the odd one out. And this is something that lots of people are experiencing. And something that's been really nice is seeing the community side of things develop. So as Danielle said, people are supportive when others are being coached, but also outside of the coaching sessions themselves on the Slack community. It's been really nice to see people chatting and getting to know each other. And in feedback from PDRs in the coaching community, people have talked about how it's helped them to connect and to find a community of people, which I think brings huge benefits and, and it's something perhaps we didn't expect when we launched the coaching, it's, it's, the coaching in itself is beneficial in lots of different ways, but that wraparound community, is great as well.

Vikki: 29:17

Definitely. And I've seen it and we'll talk in a second about how it interacts with the rest of your provision, but I've seen people starting to go to some of the live things together as well, because I think there's sometimes, you know, you guys put on some amazing stuff live on campus. And sometimes there's that bit of, I don't know anyone that's going, I'm not sure whether I'm brave enough sort of thing. And I see people in Slack going is anyone going to the shut up and work session at Westmere because I thought I might go and people oh yeah yeah I'll come I'll meet you there sort of thing. So it's definitely translating into some into some in real life support as well which has been which has been amazing. The other thing that I see a lot is where If you see somebody who has the same sorts of issues as you, you just have a little bit more distance from it than when it's your thing. You can sort of see their thoughts as thoughts, rather than just the truth. And when you hear somebody beating themselves up, and you can see how amazing this person is, and how well, objectively, they're doing, and things, it's almost much easier to be like, well, why, why would you be saying that about you? Cause you're amazing. And then you start going, well, hang on. I say that about me. And actually I'm, I'm probably about the same as them in terms of where I'm at and things. And I think sometimes just seeing that little bit of distance, from it, seeing it in somebody else, seeing them have that realization can be like, well, if that's true for them and I can definitely believe it's true for them, then maybe it's that's possibly true for me too, and I think that's, I think that's the other benefit. Because the thing I didn't discuss at the beginning, you guys talked about how you got where you are. I came to this stuff as a participant. So I'm not 100 percent sure whether I have ADHD or not, but I certainly have tendencies in that direction. And I came across a online group coaching program for adults with ADHD, which is based in the U. S. And I joined that membership and the sessions run just like our sessions and I gained so much. I think I was only coached by her maybe two or three times in the year that I was in the membership and I gained so much from watching other people getting coached. And the more I was doing it and the more I was feeling myself develop, the more I was like, our students need this. Our staff need this too, but that's for another day. But our students need this. This would be so good. And that was where the sort of the idea initially came from. And that was where I decided to train and then ultimately decided to leave my job and do it full time, was seeing how transformative those sessions were for me, when the only thing we had in common was a cluster of symptoms. You know, these were people from all different walks of life. And I was just like, PhD students have so much in common in terms of the challenges that they have, that this sort of a community, this sort of space would be hugely important. And the other thing I wanted to add is why I think it's different from a social space. So you talked about the importance of community and having people to talk to and things. And social interactions between students is hugely important. We want to encourage everyone to have lots of informal interactions. And this could be a great way to meet people, especially for people, distance learners and part time students and things. But where I think this is different from informal interactions, it is a moderated space. So there can be a tendency, in coaching, we call it to get in the pool. We have a tendency that when you're with friends, if a friend says, Oh yeah, this is really rubbish, isn't it? I'm really struggling. The other friend goes, yeah, no, it totally is. I agree. It's really rubbish. This is awful. We're never going to finish, are we? And you kind of get in the pool and swim around together in the misery. and sometimes, you know, one of you is the one that tries to lift each other up and stuff. But having that, that space where you can have honest, conversations about how you're feeling and the thoughts you're having, but with somebody there who's trained to be like, no, hang on, should we look at that thought, let's see whether that's actually, is that true? Is there anything else we believe? Is that helping? Those sorts of things. It is, it's a different thing.

Danielle: 33:29

Yeah. I would completely agree with that. and I think sometimes you maybe wouldn't take that from your friend or your friend maybe wouldn't want that sort of advice. Maybe you're sitting having a coffee and they just want to vent. And just for you to be like, Oh, that is awful. I'm sorry. That's terrible. It's, you know, it's rubbish. if you started to maybe try that's To coach them, it might not be welcome. You know, the dynamics not really right. So yeah, I think having a sort of external force that's, you know, trained in that way. And you're also in that environment where you're expecting it, I think. It's far more productive as well.

Vikki: 34:07

Definitely. And I'm really glad to hear you say that because the one thing that we do talk about in coaching sessions, and I have to be really mindful of is there's no peer coaching allowed in Slack. So you can be supportive of each other, you can cheer each other on, you can empathize all of those things. But we don't, we want you to be peer support, but not coaches. Cause that's not what people are trained to do. And I have to be cautious on it. Now that I'm a coach, if I'm like with friends and things, I have to be careful. I'm not going, is that just a thought? And that's not to say I'm not compassionate in sessions. I'll absolutely say, you know, Oh yeah, that does sound really challenging. You know, I understand why you're upset by that. But can you see how it's coming from these thoughts that you're having? So yeah, I think that is, that is really important. Um, Tara, so how does it fit? Obviously, Birmingham already had a whole bunch of provision, provided not just by the grad school, but also by the library and the colleges and various other places. So how do you see this sort of all fitting together? Because I imagine there are some universities that are like, we've got stuff right. You know, we do workshops on procrastination. We do things on how to do a lit review. We don't really need this as well. Where do you see it all fit together?

Tara: 35:13

My view is that a lot of the other workshops that are offered are often one off and I think that's a benefit of the coaching that it's that regular check in and and you see people going through that journey, and overcoming their challenges and eventually submitting and doing their Viva. And I feel like the regular coaching complements the existing support. So, the library does some great PGI development workshops but they do tend to be those standalone workshops. And the same with the University Graduate School. We do a series of flagship events. We do three minute thesis and we have a research poster competition and a postgraduate research festival. I suppose they, they quite often tend to be helping PGRs develop those harder skills of presenting at a conference, whereas coaching is perhaps some of those softer skills, which are equally important.

Vikki: 36:10

How about you, Danielle? Because obviously you get offered all this, this suite of support.

Danielle: 36:15

Um, well, I must say I completely agree with Tara that I think the coaching compliments the support that is already available because it's true, Birmingham has a lot of great stuff going on. And it's interesting how some of the things I've been to recently, I've sort of seen people that I've seen in the coaching, and then we sort of talk about it. But yeah, I think the coaching is, the regularity of it, I mean having it twice a week so that, you know, at some point in your schedule you might be able to go along, and also the fact that it is specifically tackling what thoughts you're having, and what kind of struggles you're facing at that moment.

Vikki: 36:56

And I agree because It almost sounds like we're doing down one off things. I think one off things are super useful to teach specific tools, to give specific input, but it doesn't provide the same thing as the ongoing stuff. But also one of the things I see is that often there are psychological blocks with the students to engaging with those things. They don't think they have time to go to a session about how to write a lit review because they just need to write their lit review. And so one of the things that we do with coaching is try and work through some of those blockers so that students can see actually if I invest an hour to go to that lit review workshop that the library puts on, that could accelerate me much faster once they can get past those blocks that think they don't have time to do it. And similarly, you know, you talk about three minute thesis and things, I've coached people who are doing three minute thesis who they're getting all the support about how to do it from you guys, but they're still terrified of the thought of standing up and what if I mess up and what would I make that mean and all of those things. And then that's another way that the coaching sort of backs up and supports these different things. So what I'm seeing is a flow in both directions. Quite often in the chat, in the session, somebody will be like, Oh, Danielle, you should try the, you know, the shut up and write sessions. Oh, you should go to this I went to this thing in the library and it was really good. Why don't you try that? So there's sort of a referral out to all those things from each other. And there's also the thing that we support the engagement in those activities. So I, I see that it's the coaching a sort of a little hub that connects all these things together and provides that sort of live community. And then over time, as more universities join, we'll add more sessions as well. Because one of the things I know, I do always get messages from students going, I really want to come, but I always have this regular thing on a Tuesday and Thursday, so I can't come to those sessions. And so over time, as more universities join, we'll be able to add things at different times of day. Thank you so much, both of you for coming. What would you as a sort of wrap up? Tara, what would you say to staff members about this program?

Tara: 39:07

I would say to staff members that it's extremely beneficial in so many different ways. It can be the difference between someone suspending their studies or even dropping out altogether and from what we've seen so far, obviously, it's only been running for quite a short space of time, but even in just these early days, the feedback that we've had suggests that it's having a really big difference to, the experience that PGRs are having at the university and having a big difference to the way they're experiencing the research culture at the university as well. The fact that it's online, as you've already said, people can join, regardless of whether they're a distance learner or they're part time, and as well as learning some of those skills to help them to navigate some of the challenges, to motivate themselves and feel more confident, it's also giving access to a really supportive community.

Vikki: 39:58

No, I agree entirely. I've just started doing some supervisor training as well, and I see the frustrations that supervisors have when they're like, I don't understand, we set a goal, they're perfectly capable of doing this thing, and they haven't handed it in, and supervisors start to assume that the student's just not motivated or just not hard working, where we know there's, there's a lot more going on than that, and so I really think it can help with some of the frustrations that supervisors have because the things we're managing are the things that worry supervisors about their students. Supervisors want their students to have good well being. They want them to be productive and to hit goals and things. They don't want them in 100 hours a week working ridiculously and burning out. They want them healthy and happy and doing their thing. And this just really contributes to that, I think. How about you, Danielle? What would you say to students who are either skeptical about coming or considering it?

Danielle: 40:54

Um, I guess I would say don't, don't be skeptical until you've tried it, you know. It's what have you got to lose by just trying it, you know. And it's quite a gentle way of trying it out because like you say it's a webinar. You don't have to volunteer and put your hand up you can just sort of sit there and see how other people are coached and and gently get yourself into it But also as you get braver do put your hand up because I think you can get so so many benefits from the the one to one coaching and just kind of you know sharing what your challenges are and having someone challenge those thoughts that you're having about yourself and it also might just help someone else as well who's sitting there watching you. So I would say, yeah, just, just give it a go. What have you got to lose? Yeah, I would, I would just say if you can find a little bit of time in your, in your schedule, just give it a try.

Vikki: 41:55

Love it. Parra, if there's other universities thinking this sounds great, but we have to pay for it. You were so central to helping this happen. How do you convince, where does the money come from, and why do you think the university invested in it?

Tara: 42:10

So in our case, we bid for funding from our institutional Research England QR funding. so that's a pot of money which can be drawn on to try and enhance research culture. Um, and for us, we felt that trying to support the well being of the postgraduate research community was central to that. It's recognising that postgraduate researchers are different from other students and perhaps need that tailored support, and it's worth investing in if it helps more PGRs, stay in their studies, finish their PhD, ultimately, you know, perhaps get academic jobs and have a positive experience of university life throughout whilst they're doing their studies.

Vikki: 42:54

And I think that research culture stuff is so crucial, isn't it? Because as Danielle said, a lot of these students will go on and be future academics. And one of the things I talk about in the supervisor training is how when we can't manage ourselves and our own emotions and our own thoughts, we can then sometimes become difficult supervisors because actually if we're feeling time pressure and that that means something really important, it's really easy to accidentally then put pressure on the people around you as well. So I really believe we're developing a group of academics who will look after their students in a different way because of the things they're learning while they're a student. So research culture money is always somewhere that people can look. I do think it's something that could potentially be priced into doctoral training center applications, things in the future as well, because there's often development stuff there. To be completely up front for everybody listening. It costs 10, 000 pounds a year, which is payable monthly for 10 months a year. And you only need one student to stay when they would have left, and it's paid for itself. It covers off the fees of that student, even aside from the benefit it brings. And we've already got just from the, what is it, eight, ten, ten, eleven months now we've done. We've already got examples of students who say they would have left if it wasn't for the program. So it has already paid for itself in that sense, even above and beyond any of the other benefits. Thank you so much for coming on. Thank you for all your participation in the coaching, Danielle. It's been amazing. And Tara, thank you so much. I am so grateful to the University of Birmingham because I think they have shown such foresight and such commitment to their PGR population, in looking for something, you know, it's not either people, you know, we talk about these funds that you can apply from. There's people trying to do that all the time, you know, there's tons of different projects all over the university that people can invest in. And I just think it says really good things about the university that they chose to do something that's for this really important, but often overlooked group. So I am super grateful to you and to the institution for, for all of that commitment. And I think PhD students at the university are super lucky to have people who are looking after them the way you guys do. So thank you so much guys. And, thank you everyone for listening and see you next week.

45:11

Thank you for listening to the PhD Life Coach podcast. If you liked this episode, please tell your friends, your colleagues, and your universities. I'd appreciate it if you took the time to like, leave a review, give me stars, stickers, and all that general approval as well. If you'd like to find out more about working with me, either for yourself or for people at your university, please check out my website at thephdlifecoach. com. You can also sign up to hear more about my free group coaching sessions for PhD students and academics. See you next time.