University of Helsinki
Dear PhD student,
You can tell that the academic year is coming to an end and that summer is well on its way. All the signs are there: the sun is shining, iced drinks start to seem appealing again, and you receive end of year newsletters, just like this one. In fact, by sending you this summer newsletter, we are performing summer into existence!
By any standards, the academic year 2020-21 has been a peculiar and challenging one. Plans have been thrown up in the air and have had to be rethought, teaching and learning have migrated online, fieldwork has been postponed and curtailed, and there has been a great deal of working from sofas, kitchen tables and unlikely corners. The life of the PhD student and the academic has been altered in various ways, some very apparent and some more subtle. New ways of coping and working have had to be invented. Only time can tell which of these will remain in place in the near future, and which will be abandoned, whether joyfully or with pangs of regret. But whatever happens, we have all learned new things about how we work and how do we deal with challenges. We have all also become very skilled at using Zoom and its background functions. Who knew that so many people at the University of Helsinki seem to live in houses that have wonderful views of the Golden Gate Bridge in San Francisco? Are they secretly working in Berkeley, California?
All across the world, including in universities, there are strong feelings of longing to return to ways of doing things that involve face-to-face interaction and physical proximity. How strange it will seem once again to be in a classroom with other people, or to attend a conference with live human beings in front of you, albeit at whatever is defined as a safe distance. How lovely it would be to bump into a colleague in the office or library and be able to converse without wearing a mask.
Nobody really knows what the future will bring in terms of how we will operate in universities. It is unlikely that we are going to go back in any simple way to pre-Covid forms of “normality”, whatever those may have been. We are not just entering into a period of The New Normal, but probably a set of overlapping New Normals in the plural. Covid and the changes to social life that it brings are not going to go away in some magical way. From the point of view of PhD student working life, it seems likely that a lot of activities will have to remain partially online, at least for a while. This will involve, for example, finding new ways of doing interviews with research subjects, and inventing novel means of collecting data. It is probably best to regard such necessary innovations as opportunities as much as experiencing them as being forced upon us all. And as we all are compelled to create and invent new ways of getting things achieved, we should remember that we are all in this together, that we are not alone, and that the more help and support we can give to each other, the better.
For many students and staff members, this summer will not be like others. There is more catching up work to do, to make up for lost time. Vacation periods may be curtailed for the purposes of getting on with one’s PhD work and other kinds of professional activity. If the fickle Finnish weather smiles upon us, there will be constant struggles between a felt duty to stay inside, glued to the computer all day, and going outside to bask in the sun. Given how quickly autumn and winter return in Finland, it is probably best to go and enjoy the sunshine while you can and worry about the work later. Carpe diem: seize the day!
Looking towards the Autumn/Fall, we can identify the following issues:
- The teaching programme for the next academic year is now available. You can browse the courses in Sisu already now (Search > type “SOST-” in the field and choose Teaching in a specific period as a filter (2021-22: 1., 2., 3. and 4. period) and from August onwards in the study guide.
- Registration on courses will happen in Sisu from August onwards: add the study unit (i.e. the code) in your study plan, choose the relevant course in the completion methods, and enrol in the study calendar. Please note that a single course may be available under several codes, so choose the code that you haven’t completed yet (for example, for most seminars, the same teaching event applies to PhD seminars I and II – if you have already completed the first seminar, enrol through the code of the second seminar).
- Please make sure to create your study plan in Sisu and acquaint yourself with the Sisu instructions for doctoral students available in the study guide. Please note that the applications of students who are about to graduate are prioritized during summer. We are all still learning to use Sisu, so please be patient 😊
- Remember to start gathering your thesis committee if you haven’t already done so. All doctoral candidates, except for those who will submit their thesis before 31 July 2022, should have a thesis committee by August 2021. The instructions for thesis committees are available in the study guide.
- The call for papers for this year’s annual conference titled “Politics of Analysis: Causality, Ethics, Institutions” is open until 15 August. Please consult the conference website for more information.
- The call for salaried positions is open between 23 August and 7 September. The programme-specific instructions for applying are available on the programme’s website.
- If you have questions or concerns related to these practical issues, please be in touch with the planning officer of the programme Tuuli Holttinen (tuuli.holttinen@helsinki.fi) or the HYMY Doctoral School (hymy doc@helsinki.fi). Please note that the HYMY office is closed in July.
Have a good summer, be sure to have a PROPER break, and come back re-energised and refreshed in a few months.
With best wishes,
The Steering Committee of the Doctoral Programme in Social Sciences
David Inglis
Ilkka Pietilä
Mikko Myrskylä
Anna-Maija Pirttilä-Backman
Johanna Sumiala
Kris Clarke
Sirpa Tenhunen
Keshia Dsilva
Jenni Savonen
and planning officer Tuuli Holttinen