When you start a PhD, there's a lot to think about – so here are our tips on what to do to make the most of your PhD experience.

Now it's time to start looking ahead to the new year and thinking about what you want to achieve. For economics students, we've got suggestions for 10 new year's resolutions which will help to make your studies more engaging, less stressful, and more rewarding.

DO get to know your dorm-mates and fellow students. College can be a scary place, socially speaking. But making friends and connections is as much a part of the college experience as academic achievement. Try new things, meet new people, and push yourself to try to make new friends. The secret is that everyone feels uncomfortable and shy when they first start college – you're not the only one!

The new academic year is about to begin, so follow these ten tips for a successful start to the year!

Supervision is a difficult task, and there is often conflict between supervisors and their PhD students. Even if you find a supervisor with whom you have excellent rapport, there can still be problems. Here are some of the types of difficult supervisor which you might encounter, and tips on how to manage them.

Will you be writing up your PhD thesis soon? Avoid these eight mistakes and the writing process will be much smoother.

When you think about what skills a student needs to be successful, you probably think of academic skills like research or academic writing. If you're becoming a student for the first time, this can be intimidating – you've never learned those skills before! But there are lots of other skills you will have picked up in your life which will help you through your studies. Consider the following:

Your supervisor should play a helpful and supportive role in your PhD – but you should also be realistic about what to expect from them. Here are 8 things you'll never hear your PhD supervisor say:

When you're starting out as undergraduate student, there is so much to think about and to remember that it can be hard to know how to manage your course load. With that in mind, these tips can help you balance your courses so that your undergraduate experience can be as rewarding and positive as possible.

Writing up your master's thesis is a big job, and you need to take some time to think about administrative issues as well as the content of your thesis. We've talked before about the final steps you need to take to make sure that your PhD thesis is ready to submit. Today, it's the turn of the master's students. If you're finishing up your master's, take a look at this checklist and make sure you're ready with everything you need to submit your thesis.

The big day is here – you're finally ready to hand in your PhD thesis! Years of work have culminated in this one piece of work, and you're prepared to submit it to your university office. You're almost certainly stressed, exhausted, and very glad to be done. But there are a few quick points you need to check before you formally submit your thesis, so take a look at this checklist and make sure everything is in order.

If you're working your way through your degree, you may well be required to write a number of essays for your assessment. This can be tricky if you don't have a lot of experience in essay writing, so today we're sharing tips on how to manage the essay-writing process.

In the intensly competitive and narrow job market, prospective job seekers are increasingly discovering that a Bachelor’s degree is not enough, as more and more job profiles require you to have a Master’s (or similar postgraduate diploma/certificate). Whereas once postgraduate qualifications were reserved for the rare elite, today they are increasingly becoming the norm. With the often remarked upon generalised and broad character of many undergraduate degrees, it is not uncommon for employers to attach great importance to postgraduate qualifications.

Why move to a new field for postgraduate study? Perhaps a topic caught your eye during your undergraduate studies and you always wanted to pursue it further. Perhaps you're confident in your understanding of the essential facts of your field and feel that it's time for a change. Perhaps you want to broaden your skills and gain some variety to your studies. In any case, postgraduate study allows you to delve deeper into topics and to learn more independent research skills. If you're thinking of making a change, read on for advice on how to set yourself up in a new discipline for your postgraduate study.

Instead of relaxing by the pool, engaging in night long barbecues or taking long awaited beach vacations, do you find yourself smoldering in the summer heat at your local library, or at your very own disheveled desk, mustering what little willpower you have left to write your thesis? As a current graduate student at the American University in Cairo I share your woes, and perhaps sleep depriving fears, but believe me when I say there is light, and the promise of a blissful graduation, at the end of that slightly terrifying thesis tunnel. Whether or not you’ve established a sizeable outline or built a praiseworthy bibliography, you will need to keep writing, and not succumb to the dastardly clutches of summertime procrastination, to ultimately reach your deadline. The key to thesis writing during this scorching summer is to stay motivated, even if it takes pitchers of iced coffee and copious amount of frozen yogurt to get you through! Take a look at my top ten tips on how to stay motivated while writing your thesis this sunny season.

After finishing high school many students think of applying for university and getting at least a Bachelor’s degree. After 3 to 5 years of studying some choose to take their first degree and join the job market, while others decide to continue in university to complete a Masters Degree or even a PhD through additional academic and/or applied research. If you are thinking about taking this final step and doing your PhD, but you are still not sure whether it is right for you, check out the links below to see what you can expect from a PhD program.

A PhD was something I always dreamed of doing. On the one hand, it was a natural continuation of my, it now seems, life-long learning curve after my Master’s degree. But, more importantly, it was also a faraway dream on the horizon that seemed worth pursuing just for its own sake. I probably knew my love of research should last me the entire doctoral spell but no one will ever be able to fully explain to you what it is like to undertake a PhD until you have finally let yourself fall into its subtle embrace.

With English being considered the “must-have language”, is there a need for economists to learn a foreign language, or does it concern only those who work or want to work in the business field in a non-English speaking country?

In between the common subdisciplines of economics like international or financial economics, lie many much smaller specializations, for example the economics of language. The term “economics of language“ is defined by François Grin, to be “the paradigm of mainstream theoretical economics and uses the concepts and tools of economics in the study of relationships featuring linguistic variables, it focuses principally, but non exclusively, on those relationships in which economic variables also play a part”.