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About PhDs
Mar. 20th, 2013 08:31 pm![[livejournal.com profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/external/lj-userinfo.gif){kind=small}
nwhyte posted a very interesting link to a post by Liv - http://liv.dreamwidth.org/389934.html (sorry I'm not sure how to do user links to Dreamwidth accounts).While in the main I agree with everything she said, I think one of the points that she misses is that one of the major problems PhD students face is how PhDs are sold to undergraduates, which also affects the various posts that I've seen floating around about how there are far better things to do with your life than doing a PhD.
Which I'm not going to disagree with. But for some people, myself included, there was no other option if we want to go into the career we desire. I never wanted to be anything other than a research scientist and that meant I had to do a PhD.
And I think that's important, you have to know why you're doing it, because it's a long, arduous process, and that, and an unhealthy dose of stubbornness, is the only thing that's going to get you through it. The most important advice I received came from friend 'I' when first applied for the place I eventually got - "are you sure you want to do this? Don't just take the place because it's offered, do it because you really want to do it, because PhDs are hard. You will hate it, yourself and everything to do with it before you're done."*
So what do I think potential PhD students should be told?
(Everything that follows only covers UK PhDs since that's the only kind I'm qualified to talk about.)
1) A PhD is not a guarantee of a future job or a future career in that field.
2) If you can, investigate the lab/group you will be working with. I was lucky, while I didn't know anyone in the lab I joined, I knew people in the lab next door to it. I know this option isn't open to everyone, but if you can, do it.
2 a) Pay attention to your gut. When you're at the interview, how do you feel about your potential colleagues? How do you feel about your potential supervisor? Remember he's on his best behaviour so if he's making you feel uncomfortable in some way, imagine what he'll be like once you're his student. (He is used in a gender-neutral sense here.)
3) It's a very lonely process, not in the physical sense of you being the only PhD student, but in a mental sense. You are the only one going through whatever you are going through. The systems for PhD students differ between universities, they differ between the different faculties and schools within a university, and from project to project. One of my friend's specialised in animal bones, another had to discuss the application of Marxist theory to neolithic societies. They're both archaeologists. My department’s building was off-campus, but two labs within the department were in a building on main campus, so as a whole the PhD students in the department were detached from activities intended for PhD students that were held on the main campus, and the students in those two particular labs were detached from the rest of us, which did lead to communication problems sometimes.
4) Support, there's not enough of it. I'm thinking particularly of ESL students, because writing a formal thesis is difficult for people who are English-as-a-first-language, I can only imagine it's significantly worst if you're not, and there doesn't seem to be anything available to help ESL students. There's also not a lot of support for students with chronic illnesses or mental health issues either. Sadly, the only advice I can give is that if you think you will need an extension, ask before your deadline.
4b) The people you surround yourself with outside of work are important. I was lucky enough to have friends who were going through the same experience me, and we could drink and bitch about our PhDs, which made everything much more bearable.
Having hobbies is important. It doesn't matter what it is, just something that isn't the PhD.
If you have a significant other, whether or not they are supportive can make a huge difference. I'm thinking particularly of a friend who had an S.O. who believed that what they wanted was far more important that anything of the friend's, including little, unimportant things like first year reports, second year reports, departmental talks and so on. Because of this, he's on to his second extension and 6 months behind everyone else he started with.
5) (This only applies to funded students) You will need to budget or learn to budget. This is one of the points where I disagree with Liv. I thought my research council stipend was a king's ransom, but that might have been because for the three previous years I'd been living on a third of it. That doesn't mean it's a lot of money though, and you learn to separate the things you want from the things you need.
6) (This may not apply to non-science PhD students) It's nothing like doing your undergraduate degree**. Nothing at all. You have to organise your time, your experiments, your consumables, your lab budget and frequently your time with your supervisor. That's not counting finding time for writing reports and presentations. And taking care of any undergraduate/Masters students you might be given to look after. That doesn't include finding time to go to talks and conferences. Or other things like sleeping, eating and having a non-PhD life. This is probably what I found to be the most difficult thing about my PhD.
7) Managing your supervisor is vital. This can mean anything from making sure you can agree on times to meet (my supervisor was a rower so had been up for five hours already when I came into university at 10. I was more of a night owl so I was still going strong when he left at 6. We ended up agreeing on 2 in the afternoon for meetings to discuss my project.) to saying “no” when they want to keep you in the lab when you ought to be writing up. That latter is especially important. Learning how manage your supervisor’s expectations of what you should be doing, by which I mean things like the direction of your PhD or the techniques you will be using during it, is one of the key steps of your PhD.
8) (This may not apply to non-science PhD students) Your PhD work might not work. Science is all about investigating the unknown which means there will be some dead-ends. It can be disheartening.
9) Your mood will depend on how well your PhD is going. I've never known anyone this didn't apply to. It's something to be aware of.
10) There will be arseholes. There is no more delicate way of putting it. I've been lucky enough not to have come up against the same kind of arseholes as Liv has but that doesn't mean there weren't any. I don't, from my own experiences, think they they're any worse that what you'd find in most jobs, the problem is there's no real equivalent of a human resources department that you can raise complaints with, particularly if the other person is someone who works in a vital role.
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I don't want to put anyone off doing a PhD, particularly the friend of mine who is starting her PhD soon, because all in all I enjoyed mine, and can't regret doing it. But then again, I'd been forewarned and I think that helped to get me through some of the worse times.
* I, it must be said, was the guy whose viva opened with the external examiner saying "you've passed, can I just talk to you about your work because it's really interesting." He was probably the best student in his year. And that's how bad he felt at points.
** I don't know how it compares to Masters degrees as I never did one.
