Technology Needs & Your PhD - Things I Wish I Knew When I Started My PhD #2

With the fall semester approaching, you’re probably starting to evaluate your technology and considering upgrades or new purchases. While this post is in my “Things I Wish I Knew When I Started My PhD” series this is definitely a topic every PhD student (or grad student in general) will be thinking of. The type of tech we use will vary and differ from one person to the next depending on their preference (Mac vs. PC for example) as well as their program (sciences vs. Humanities), but hopefully this will get you thinking about your tech a bit and spark some ideas for what you might need this coming academic year.

This list is pulled from my experience and from responses I got from friends on Instagram (they’re very helpful!). I’ll include their answers at the end. 

1. Laptop

First up, the obvious. You’re going to need a laptop. I remember when I first started grad school (back before the earth cooled). Back in 2005, it was sufficient just to have a desktop computer at home. Hardly anyone had a laptop that they brought to classes or to the office with them. I had a laptop, but I hated bringing it with me to class, so I only did if I had a presentation to give. It was a Dell and it weighed a ton! Fast forward to 2013 and starting my PhD and I had a shiny MacBook Pro. God I loved that thing! It got me through my second MA and most of my PhD, I upgraded to the newest model in 2017 when I was starting my dissertation. So, you don’t have to have the newest, best laptop at the start. Whatever you’ve been working on will probably get you through your first couple years. But unless you just bought it, you might want to plan on upgrading by the time you finish coursework and are starting your diss. Your dissertation is literally the worst time for your laptop to die (second worst time is at the end of the semester when your students turn in their final projects online). So, use your current one until it quits, but have a fund going so that you can afford to replace as soon as you need to. Your laptop will be the most important tool you use throughout your degree.

2. Backup Storage

Whether you use Google Drive, Dropbox, an external hard drive, or some combination of cloud and physical external storage, get something! Back when I first started grad school (in 2005) I learned the hardware the lesson in backing things up. My home was burglarized and my laptop was stolen. My laptop with a 13 page final research paper that I’d spent the whole night before finishing. A paper I had to rewrite from scratch and memory in order to pass the class (eternally grateful the professor gave me an extension to rewrite it). So if you aren’t already in a habit of backing things up, get into that habit now. I have an external drive by Seagate that I use (and love) and I also use Google Drive (my uni has a lot of the Google apps through our online student/faculty portal) as well as emailing things to myself. I know a lot of people who use Dropbox and love it. So whatever you feel most comfortable with, get into the habit of using it.

3. Tablet (optional, but highly encouraged)

I bought my first iPad when I went back to grad school for my second MA. I then upgraded to a new iPad (a mini) last year before going to my conference in London. I know a lot of students who have either an iPad or some other tablet and no one seems to think of it as anything “extra”. I saved countless pages of paper and cartridges of ink during all my coursework years by being able to download all my class readings (as well as many of my textbooks) to my iPad. I have the iBook, Kindle, and Nook apps as well as a few other eBook apps, which let me read eBooks borrowed from my uni library or downloaded from other sources. I have a separate app for reading PDFs (more on that in a minute). I also have always had a mini keyboard for my iPad, so I could type notes on it as well as use it as a reader. It saved me from having to carry my laptop with me all the time. It was the best investment ever and probably paid for itself over time in costs saved from buying physical books, printing out PDFs, as well as the physical cost of carrying extra weight around. So if you have the money to spring for a tablet, do it.

4. Smartphone

Most people have one these days, but I do know a few holdouts, so I’m including this in case you are one as well. Another PhD Instagrammer recently asked what was the one tool or piece of tech we couldn’t live without, and I said my iPhone. Seriously. Between my iPod for music, my calendar, productivity apps, social media, and more, my phone was never beyond arms reach the entire 5 years of my PhD. That might sound obsessive, but my phone was my lifeline and saving grace…personally, professionally, emotionally, intellectually. I could live without my iPad, but not without my phone. You definitely need to set boundaries with your usage, but it can absolutely help you more than hinder you if you learn how to harness its powers.

5. Apps & Software

There are so many apps and software you can use for working and productivity. So I’m not going to try to make an exhaustive list. But there are two that I used the most throughout my second MA and my PhD that are well worth investigating for yourself.

iAnnotate by Branchfire

This app was a LIFESAVER! I spotted it on a professor’s iPad just a couple weeks into my first semester back in grad school. I had been looking for a PDF app that would give me all the same functionality as a hardcopy in terms of being able to annotate it the way I wanted. Other apps just let me highlight and that was it, and only if the PDF was of a certain quality. This app lets you annotate any way you want. Highlight, underline, write notes, etc. There are also a ton of other annotation features including ways to flatten and share your annotations via email. You can also arrange files in your “library” and create a folder for each class or research project. The app cost me $15 I think but it was well worth it and one of the few apps I would recommend paying for. I used it through out all of my coursework as well as during my dissertation writing and it was so nice to have those articles nicely annotated and organized while I was working.

Scrivener

If you’ve been following me on Instagram or YouTube for awhile you know I love Scrivener. I don’t think I would have gotten the first draft of my dissertation written without it. I’ve done a video showing how I set up my dissertation “binder” in Scrivener so I won’t dwell on it much here, but it was seriously the best thing. I loved how I could organize things they way I would if it was a physical three ring binder and the word target was a lifesaver! It was probably my favorite feature. It made staying motivated so much easier. I loved that you could drag in other files, including PDFs and images and the outlining feature was fantastic. It’s very visual, which was great for a visual/creative person like myself. It’s a little more expensive, about $45, but well worth it. There are options to sync and back up to Dropbox and overall it just made wrangling a 60k word document a million times easier. I did all my edits in Word, since I would send the chapters one and a time to my committee, and they’d send it back with track changes. But it was worth the cost of the app to use Scrivener just for the initial organizing and drafting stages. 

Readers Respond

So I asked on Instagram for my PhD and grad school friends to tell me what tech they use the most. Here’s what they said:

 @operation_phd - “iPad Pro with pencil, Scrivener, Google Calendar, audio recorder, express scribe”

@caitdejuna - “My MacBook Pro, 15in. Best screen size for the amount of data I work with. And Scrivener.”

@hwelch86 - “Laptop for papers, making presentations, etc. iPad for articles and lecture notes.”

@rachelbigeyes - “Google apps! Google Calendar and Tasks save my overloaded schedule from crumbling around me.”

@sometimesiquilt - “My MacBook, Scrivener, iPad and pencil for journal and book reading/notes.”

@kay.bru - “MacBook! Also, Google Docs, Google Spreadsheet, Google Scholar, etc.”

@ktr.photos - Laptop (a given?) and smart phone for scanning book pages/taking pictures of manuscripts.”

As you can see, laptops and tablets feature highly, @ktr.photos reminds us that smart phones can be used for scanning book pages and images (great for archive work or books you can’t check out of the library!), and Scrivener makes an appearance on their lists as well.

I hope this list has been helpful and has got you thinking a bit about your tech needs. Technology has changed so much since I first started grad school and it can definitely help make your life easier and more productive if you choose wisely. What gadget or app can you not live without? Tell me in the comments or tweet me at @SeversonSimotti or tell me on Instagram at @jesuisjustemoi. I’d love to hear from you!

Until next time,

Andrea