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While I study my PhD and undertake part time paid work basically within the same field (Australian politics), there are real differences between my two roles, and thus, I find myself constantly aware of the need to utilise different approaches of ‘headspaces’ in each.

When doing my PhD, I need to question, seek confirmation for everything, know and acknowledge the limitations of my knowledge and be diligent in justifying every assertion or argument.

By contrast, while accuracy is of course important, the role of a politician and certainly a political staffer, is to give your opinion. Of course, your opinion should be thoroughly grounded in facts and evidence, but ultimately, you have much more lee-way in arguing for what you believe should be the case of what course of action you and others should take.

While a large portion of academic study does a similar thing (normative theory), it is not quite the same mindset. In my office work, people aren’t particularly interested in all the underlying reasons why something is the way it is, whereas in my academic work, it is those underlying phenomena that are of most significance.

Switching between the two environments can be challenging, particularly when I do it for a set period of time every week, before rapidly returning to the other mode. Of course, given the demands of my PhD, the academic mode is dominant, and there are certainly aspects of it – attention to detail and a humility regarding my own limits for example – that prove very beneficial across both settings.

A goal for me in the coming months is to learn to master this relatively benign form of ‘code-switching’.