A post by Sam Bowyer, PhD student on the Compass programme.
A year on from the wildly successful 2024 Compass Away Day, members of Compass cohorts 3-5 returned to the idyllic Folly Farm in Somerset for another writing retreat, each student one year older and, we presume but cannot confirm, one year wiser.
Among the attendees were: a soon-to-be lecturer at the University of Bath (who was so excited for the writing retreat that he ended up finishing his thesis 3 days before the retreat began); a crossword-whizz who, we’ve been told, consistently ranks higher than 90% of CEOs on LinkedIn Games; and the owners of two separate, viral social media pages about beans.
Having partaken in the typical Compass Away Day frivolities of archery and wine tasting (in that order) the previous month, the agenda for this trip was simple: write.
Some attendees made use of the time to write parts of their theses. Others used the time to finish up soon-to-be submitted research papers. Your humble correspondent put the finishing touches on a poster for a conference taking place a week later (and had time left over to write most of this blog)!
In amongst the two days of focused writing, the Compass students also managed to find time to explore the farm, perfect the art of cooking s’mores on a fire, and nearly set a new speed record for the sport of team-NYT-crossword. (Turns out that a crossword on a big projector isn’t significantly easier than a crossword on a regular monitor).
The student organisers of the writing retreat – Rachel Wood and Sam Bowyer – also provided some edification to the attendees in the form of an evening quiz, including a round on Somerset trivia and a round on famous writers.
(Did you know: Table forks were introduced to the UK by a Somerset man returning from a trip to Italy in the early 17th century? And that the French writer Honoré de Balzac reportedly drank 50 cups of coffee a day)!
The writing retreat provided the Compass students with a great opportunity to each get some important work done, whilst also fostering the kind of CDT community spirit that has helped shape so many of our PhDs.