{"id":2305,"date":"2026-05-13T08:43:34","date_gmt":"2026-05-13T08:43:34","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/sites.exeter.ac.uk\/apex\/?p=2305"},"modified":"2026-05-13T08:43:35","modified_gmt":"2026-05-13T08:43:35","slug":"five-things-i-wasnt-expecting-to-learn-since-beginning-my-phd-by-hassanat-mojirola-lawal","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/sites.exeter.ac.uk\/apex\/2026\/05\/13\/five-things-i-wasnt-expecting-to-learn-since-beginning-my-phd-by-hassanat-mojirola-lawal\/","title":{"rendered":"Five things I wasn’t expecting to learn since beginning my PhD, by Hassanat Mojirola Lawal"},"content":{"rendered":"
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  1. Creativity can be learned.<\/strong>
    For the life of me, I had always believed I lacked the ability to be creative. Since beginning my PhD, I have had to learn to design recruitment posters for my studies, create research posters for competitions, prepare conference materials, and put together PowerPoint presentations, too. Turns out, Canva is a beautiful tool, and practice does make improvements.<\/li>\n\n\n\n
  2. Plain language writing is a skill.<\/strong>
    Writing without research jargon can be hard. It feels like normal language to me, but not necessarily to others. I have had to learn to pause and seek feedback from non-research friends before heading to my PPIE meetings. Luckily, my dedicated PPIE team members for my PhD are incredibly skilled. In areas where I struggle, they have been so helpful in ensuring my summaries are actually written in plain language, not what I think is plain language, but just repackaged jargon.<\/li>\n\n\n\n
  3. Fake it till you make it (dealing with imposter syndrome).<\/strong>
    I am guessing, like a few others, I mostly feel like I am not worthy of doing a PhD, not as smart, not as skilled, not conducting life-saving, groundbreaking research like others. Interestingly, I have found that many people feel the same way. So, I have learned to attend meetings where my research resonates, as well as meetings focused on other research areas. It is interesting, the things that one picks up from them. I talk about my work, listen to people’s feedback, go away and reflect on them, read some more, and somehow, I end up sounding like I know exactly what I am doing, even when I really don’t think I do.<\/li>\n\n\n\n
  4. Sometimes, zoning out is productive.<\/strong>
    Even though I am studying part-time, after working on my PhD three days a week for about two and a half years now, including a ten month maternity leave, I have learned that zoning out and stepping away from a task can sometimes work best. My head is clearer, my mind is fresher, and things I had missed, or had been struggling with, begin to make sense. Sometimes, the best way to move forward is to briefly step away.<\/li>\n\n\n\n
  5. My admin tasks belong in the late afternoon.<\/strong>
    There are always things to do: training to complete, meetings to schedule, minutes to record on SRS, and emails to stay on top of. If I tackle those first things in the morning, the rest of the day is usually far less productive. Those tasks go to the late afternoons, or those inevitable days of zoning out when my brain is fried. With a decent cup of coffee, a functioning to-do (or random) list and a can-do attitude, it will get sorted.<\/li>\n<\/ol>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"","protected":false},"author":989,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_acf_changed":false,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paid_content":false,"footnotes":""},"categories":[49,1],"tags":[],"acf":[],"yoast_head":"\nFive things I wasn't expecting to learn since beginning my PhD, by Hassanat Mojirola Lawal - Exeter Collaboration for Academic Primary Care (APEx) Blog<\/title>\n<meta name=\"robots\" content=\"index, follow, max-snippet:-1, max-image-preview:large, max-video-preview:-1\" \/>\n<link rel=\"canonical\" href=\"https:\/\/sites.exeter.ac.uk\/apex\/2026\/05\/13\/five-things-i-wasnt-expecting-to-learn-since-beginning-my-phd-by-hassanat-mojirola-lawal\/\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:locale\" content=\"en_US\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:type\" content=\"article\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:title\" content=\"Five things I wasn't expecting to learn since beginning my PhD, by Hassanat Mojirola Lawal - 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