Francesco Dimitri was our guest speaker at this year's Festival of Doctoral Research.
In both his lecture and follow-up workshops, Francesco spoke passionately about harnessing your sense of wonder and pushing forward in times of adversity.
He touched on issues affecting doctoral researchers and offered practical solutions which related not only to PhD study, but also to the journey afterwards, whether in or outside of academia.
Theme: Realising your full potential
A PhD is a journey, and when it is over, another journey begins - a longer and more difficult one. While exciting, the PhD journey and the road afterwards can also be daunting. We are going to meet rough patches, doubt, frustrations big and small; when we try to get published, when we feel our work piling on top of us or when we feel we haven't achieved as much as our peers. How can we keep our eyes set on our goal?
A sense of wonder
The answer, one answer, is by cultivating our sense of wonder. From Plato to Einstein, scientists and philosophers agree that that a sense of wonder is the common source of all human adventures; it motivates us to look into microscopes, to create better computers, or immerse ourselves into ancient myths and the pleasures of the arts. And when the going gets tough, it is our sense of wonder that makes us resilient.
