Bronwyn Swartz

Lecturer, Cape Peninsula University

Lecturer and postgraduate research supervisor at Cape Peninsula University of Technology (CPUT) in the Western Cape, South Africa

Bringing my PhD home

Data gathering for my PhD is turning out to be a nightmare! Sure, my Master’s was tough. So tough that the year I got divorced doesn’t even compare to the one during which I wrote Master’s. But this time around it feels even tougher!

Academic writing is a rather painstaking affair

Lately, my Master’s has started to feel more real than ever before. I am putting the teeny pieces together, and it’s like a gazillion-piece jigsaw puzzle! I’ve realized that I’ll be wasting time if I rush into it. So, to ensure that I don’t write rubbish, I follow a specific sequence that goes like this…

Conquering milestones in my PhD journey

I finally finished the corrections to my final draft and got the thumbs up from my supervisor. Every postgrad student will agree - this is a really painful experience. I pray that I will someday be kinder to my own postgrad students because trust me when I say, "I understand that sting!"

PhD matters: It’s time to finish what I started

Last week, I finished the final data collection for my PhD. It’s now occurred to me that I might be stressed about this. I could be stressed because I’ve never done qualitative data analysis for a project this big and this important on my own before. The bottom-line is that I’m worried!