Hi Folks

I'm Mark and, as some of you may know, I look after the advice and information content over at the Forum's sister sites, FindAMasters and FindAPhD. I'm also a PhD student myself, wrapping up an English Lit' thesis part-time.

Anyway - we're currently doing a little bit of research into postgraduate study with a disability or chronic illness - with the aim of producing a summary of some helpful advice re. common conditions and directing students towards other sources of information (including the very helpful folks who hang out here).

With that in mind, I was wondering if any of you would like to share some experiences or advice with this topic? It would be great to offer future students some tips from other postgraduates. Any level of postgraduate study is fine and I'd be happy to include contributions anonymously if preferred.

You can get in touch with me using the personal message function on the forum, or by emailing me via mbennett [at] findauniversity.com.

Thanks in advance!

Mark

Cheers to those who have got in touch with me so far.

There's still time if anyone else would like to be involved - you're very welcome to contact me anonymously using the forum, or via the email address in the post above.

Might be worth contacting the folks that run this site:
https://phdisabled.wordpress.com/

Thanks HazyJane - That's an excellent resource and certainly one we'll be directing readers to.

It's great to see so much existing support for these issues - I've been very encouraged by it whilst researching the topic.

I wrote up my experiences and they were posted online at

I'm not sure what other advice I could offer but would be happy to help if you think I can. PM me if you want Mark.

Thanks BilboBaggins - as it happens, your guest post at Dr Nadine Muller's blog was one of the first pieces I came across when looking into this topic. It's a very helpful resource and an encouraging story - one of several external resources we'll be referring readers to.

Would be great to have your advice included in the article itself too - I'll be in touch.

My predecessor suffered from dyslexia. I'll e-mail him and ask if he wants to get in touch.

Ian

Mark,

A few discussions at my end have established my mate won't want to be involved as he's quite a private person.

Can I suggest you e-mail the student support services of a small number of sample Universities to see what support they offer and if they will suggest volunteers willing to share their stories?

Ian

Ian,

Many thanks for asking him anyway and of course I completely understand. If it makes any difference he's very welcome to participate anonymously (as is anyone else) and the information I'm looking for isn't extensive - brief comments and advice, really.

Contacting student support services is a good suggestion, thank you. I'll certainly consider it if I feel the piece could benefit from more student stories than I gather otherwise.

Grateful for the help!

Mark

Hello again folks

Just to reiterate this invitation to contribute some experiences / tips to an article on PhD Study with a Disability over at FindAPhD.

The advice / guide component of the content is now more or less done, but I'd be very happy to take contributions from a few more students if anyone's interested. I think the kinds of tips / advice you guys can offer are very valuable.

I'm not looking for more than a paragraph or so on a few key topics. Feel free to PM me on here, or email me at mbennett[at]findauniversity.com.

Cheers!

Mark

I have chronic illness but couldn't come up wiith any tips as I struggle really badly myself!

Thanks anyway EnglishNinja

Hopefully the advice will be useful to students in your situation once its put together. In the meantime, there are actually some very helpful threads on the forum - with supportive advice and perspective from the community here.

If you do decide you'd like to contribute anything in future, you're very welcome to get in touch with me.