[Air-l] Long-distance PhD

[Sarah Stewart]

Hello Maria

I am doing my PhD by distance as well. I live in New Zealand and am enrolled at the Centre for Online Health at the University of Queensland, Brisbane. Luckily I am able to pop across a couple of times a year to catch up and get a dose of inspiration and motivation. On the whole I find distance supervision very hard. I lose focus easily and find that email/telephone just isn't as good as face-to-face. My advice would be to build up as much support as you can with fellow students and colleagues, and especially with a second supervisor who you can see face-to-face. The other issue is the context of my research is different from what is experienced by my distance supervisor so I have a circle of people I check in with about local  contextual issues.

regards and good luck
Sarah

Sarah Stewart
Senior Lecturer
School of Midwifery
Otago Polytechnic
Dunedin
New Zealand
Tel: 0800 762786
sarahs at tekotago.ac.nz