Hi all,

In September I will be picking up my PhD part time and will namely be a distance learner (I live in Manchester but have signed up to do my PhD in Wales). It takes about two hours by train to get to the uni so I will be able to attend for important meetings, presentations etc but a lot of my work will be done at home.

I was hoping someone could give me some tips or advice about maximising my impact/presence within the department, remaining social and basically not being forgotten about! Have read that doing a PhD can be a lonely process and feel that this is likely to be worse as a distance learner. If anyone also has any helpful pointers about what to do (or not do) at the start of my PhD then that would be very much appreciated too.

Thank you! :)

I dont know what you mean by "impact" but if you want to feel connected you should get into the uni as often as you can and meet up with people. Is one afternoon a week realistic?

To be honest, it is hard enough to get noticed by academic staff as a full time student never mind a part time one. You'll need to work very hard on this aspect. Students are bottom of the foodchain and unless they do something extraordinary I cant imagine full time staff wanting to have anything to do with them. It's a good sign that you are thinking in these terms well in advance though.