Solo Session: The Renaissance Bro Mindset For PhD Success

Students and Graduates!

What if the best model for a resilient, fulfilling PhD is older than the lab coat? Do you consider yourself as a Renaissance Scholar when you produce knowledge towards PhD success?

In this Late-Night Solo Session, I combine the thoughts of current trend of the Renaissance Man or Woman as a useful frame to your PhD milestones through the following trifecta effect:

—> Curiosity about new knowledge

—> Proactivity in shaping your research and seek opportunities

—> Harmony with yourself and by valuing your closest ones

If this conversation helps you see your PhD with new clarity, share it with a fellow researcher so others can find PhD Lounge! What trait—curiosity, proactivity, or harmony—will you lean into this week?

Thank you all for tuning in, it has been a pleasure!

Bibliography:

Heller, A. (1978). Renaissance Man. Routledge & Kegan Paul Books.

Chakrabarti, T. ., & Patel, H. (2017, July 30). Stoicism in the Renaissance and Shakespeare. Smart Moves Journal Ijellh (SMJI). Retrieved from https://ijellh.com/index.php/OJS/article/view/2108

Transcript

Welcome And Renaissance Frame

SPEAKER_00 0:06

Hello students and graduates. Welcome to PhD Launch, the podcast of late-night talks in which PhDs have a drink and talk about their research topics. You've likely heard and read about the modern trend of the Renaissance man or woman. There's this romanticism to go back to the peak times of the Renaissance that had its birth in Italy and spread across Europe between the 15th and 16th centuries, where wealthy Italian families like the Medici patronized the arts, culture, and sciences. Like other trends, the modern person feels that desire to return to this historical period and advertise it with individual goals without defaulting to technology. That includes reading the Iliad of Homer, crafting jewelry, or writing an essay about a topic that sparks your curiosity. In the PhD, it is fair to argue that you are a Renaissance individual yourself, and there's no need to contextualize it into this modern trend when you research sources and write your dissertation. Here are three reasons that the intellectuals of the Renaissance period had and are transferable into you as a PhD candidate. Number 1. Curiosity. This characteristic is crystal clear. When you decide to study for a PhD degree, you subconsciously awaken your curiosity to learn new topics, research sources, and write your own thesis. Whether you're a STEM or an arts and humanities PhD, you seek more knowledge and argue new approaches to research themes that interest you. You question the why, how or what if multiple times to reach new outcomes and propose alternative methodologies and arguments to debate your thesis with your supervisors, examiners, and peers. That curiosity that sparks in you throughout your PhD is the equivalent to a Renaissance individual. 2. Proactivity. You're fully committed to design your doctoral journey whilst working alongside your supervisors. It is a relationship between you and your thesis, and you'll become proactive to try to solve research gaps by seeking not just the sources as well as help from your supervisors, but also developing your own strategies, having adaptability to recent events that may influence the course of your research, and seek related experiences that can fulfill your PhD experience, including conferences, internships, and writing blogs. And number 3. Harmony. In the Renaissance, Polymaths sought balance and meaningful lives in relation to Christianity by reviving Stoicism through living a life of wisdom and virtue in civic duties and Epicureanism regarding the moderation of pleasures. In your PhD, you too have to find harmony, meaning you have to manage your time between your thesis and your hobbies, as well as family and friends. The modern Renaissance trend is taking over the internet, and people take inspiration from the intellectuals of that time period to start learning new skills or mastering their current crafts. As a PhD, you're already enhancing current skills while developing new ones. And as you complete each chapter of your dissertation, it becomes various pieces of knowledge that you obtained and shared around the world while being curious, proactive, and having harmony with yourself. Thank you all for tuning in. It has been a pleasure.