Do you have any business cards with your name/phone/email on? I'm thinking these could be useful as I am talking to quite a few people and they might need to contact me later. If so, did you print them yourself/have your university logo on them. I am also thinking of getting a separate mobile number for people to contact me on just in case I get any unwanted calls. Any thoughts welcome.

We can get them printed by the university with the logo on, but I just got some from vistaprint with a professional-looking background, cos they were free - just pay delivery. (hope that doesn't count as advertising - I'm sure there are lots of other similar deals online). They do say "business cards are free at vistaprint" on the back though! I got them for my fieldwork because it involved doing a lot of interviews with government officials and I felt it helped me to blend in a bit better - they all gave me their business cards as welll.

I can't say I've ever had any unwanted phone calls as a result of the cards - in fact the only wierd call I've had was someone who got my phone number from my department's website. Some dodgy guy who rang up on the pretext of being interested in my research then started asking me if I was married! Thankfully it was our communal office phone number. Do you have access to an office phone that you can put on the cards instead of your personal number? It might be worth leaving your number off, and then, when you give them out, you can hand-write your number on the back if you feel comfortable doing so?

I tried to get business cards from the department when I first started - as I'd come in from a professional organisation where they are clearly commonplace - and as others in my office had them, I knew that they would come in handy when doing interviews / meetings etc. But the department told me they wouldn't provide them (fair enough... but not really cool that other PhD students had them!) and wouldn't even let me pay them to provide them for me (not fair! I was willing to pay to get them printed!)

The suggestion they gave was to write my name on a piece of card in pen on some spare ones they had in the office.

I don't think I've ever felt as small. It really reinforced to me that departments like mine (at my university) treat PhD students as kids (regardless of age).

It still angers me! :-s lol