Second Year of the PhD: It's going to suck

First off, I want to both apologise to you and thank you profusely.  I haven't written in months (for reasons that will soon become clear!) for which I owe you an apology.  However, I wanted to thank you for sticking in there, and for some of the wonderful comments I've had on various posts recently.  I really love to hear from you, so thank you, and I'm glad if these posts have been helpful for you in my absence.

Perhaps you're entering your second year of your PhD.  Maybe you've just finished it, like I have.  Either way, you've found yourself reading this post, and you're guessing from the title I'm going to be a tiny bit not-quite-optimistic about my second year review.  But, I'm going to be as objective as possible.  You can make your own mind up.

I've said before that at some point, at least one person will tell you that you will hate hate hate your PhD.  In my first year I smiled and acknowledged these comments with the naive belief that it couldn't happen to me because I loved my PhD.  At the start of second year, I thought I'd hit that point.  Lots of things (some beyond my control) went wrong and I found myself regretting even thinking a PhD was a viable option.

But it turns out, not even that was my lowest point.  Perhaps it's time for a review of the highs and lows of my second year.

Things just don't stop going wrong because you want them to.

I perhaps have had more than my share of bad luck with equipment failures, programming errors and counterbalancing issues.  Some of these things were my fault, and I had to own up to that and learn from it.  Some were completely beyond my control and I could not have done anything differently.  When things go wrong, you find yourself begging and pleading with whatever nameless PhD-god-entity exists in the cosmos beyond PhD-Land to just please, this one time, let this be the last thing that goes wrong.

Except, it turns out that things will continue to go wrong, even when you don't want them too.  Who knew, huh?  Sometimes this can feel completely soul crushing.  "I don't have the emotional resources for another crisis!" you cry.  But guess what, you do.  It's an over-used platitude, but remember - this too shall pass.  Time is going to go on with or without you, and you will keep going because some nameless force makes you get out of bed just to spite the damn thing.  And then suddenly, you'll have found a solution, or at least moved forward enough for it to no longer be as painful.

Then another crisis happens, and you'll manage that too.  It'll feel just as difficult, but perhaps the next time at the back of your mind there will be a voice reminding you that you've gotten through this before, and you can do it again.  Your resilience will have been tested like it never will again, but that's a good thing.  If you make it out the other side, you are stronger for it.

You'll learn who your friends are.

Maybe you cope fantastically with stress.  You remain a well-balanced human being and display no outer signs of the tension you might feel.  If that's you, you're lucky.  I turn into some half-crazed rabid-wolf type person when I'm really suffering from stress.  My family might see glimpses of this, because they have to love me unconditionally, as does my fiancé because, well, he knows me well enough to know it's temporary, but friends...  I don't want to expose them to that.  So I tend to get quiet, rather than inflict myself upon them until I regain a portion of my sanity.

Very quickly, a divide forms.  You'll have the people who, when you don't text or email them, you never hear from.  Not a peep.  And the others who, even though you don't always reply, still check in on you now and then with offers for a coffee or a night in or an ear if you want to talk.

Cherish these people.  They are rare.  They are few and far between.  But these are the people who you will never lose touch with.  Be honest with them, tell them how shit things are, tell them you're not suitable for human contact but when you feel a little more sane you'd love a coffee.  Same goes for your family and significant other/cat/dog/hamster.  If they can tolerate you like this, they are a keeper.  Try not to take that for granted.  

You'll discover previously unknown ambitions.

Suddenly, you want to do anything.... well, almost anything, that isn't your PhD and/or academia.  You'll start nurturing either long-forgotten or previously undiscovered ambitions.  I spent quite a large proportion of my summer looking at what other jobs I could apply for when I graduate that would get me out of this hell-hole.  

Actually, it's something I'd advise doing.  It gets you thinking about what exactly you want from your career.  Do you value income or time off more?  Pensions and maternity leave or promotion opportunities?  By spending lots of time on career planners like the one at the Prospects website, you start to discover all these potential opportunities you'd never before considered.

I really don't think it does any harm to broaden your horizons.  Having an alternative might be just what you need to glimpse a light at the end of the tunnel.  I considered a number of potential job routes, swearing off academia for life.  I considered joining the police, applying for graduate schemes with the civil service or NHS, writing books, or becoming a stay-at-home mum, living on a remote island on the west of Scotland, looking after the dog, cats and chickens, growing vegetables, making stuff on a sewing machine and making babies.  Needless to say, my fiancé thinks the latter is perhaps not quite financially viable, but the pipe dream makes life worth living.

At the end of the day, I've come full circle.  I'm considering academia again, but my search for alternatives has helped me develop a more philosophical attitude.  I'll give things a try.  If they don't work out, I'll try something else.  It doesn't really matter.

You won't know how to deal with the lull.

This isn't true for everyone, but I found that the lull I experienced during my second year was the biggest source of frustration for me.  I knew what I wanted/needed to do, but couldn't either because of lack of participants (undergrads aren't here to test), I needed to prepare for the upcoming conference, and because I just ran out of get-up-and-go.  

It can lead to a cycle of perpetual frustration - you're not as productive as you wanted to be, so you feel stressed and guilty.  These are tiring emotions that make you feel exhausted.  You're overtired and struggling to get dressed in the morning.  Then you're not as productive, because you're tired.  And so on.

For this, I don't have any stellar advice other than just try to get through it.  I will add that now I'm in my third year and I'm ridiculously busy (and third year comes with its own stresses believe me), this source of frustration is completely gone.  I made it to the other side.  You can too.

It's make or break.

I'm really not a fan of absolutes, but having successfully matriculated for my third year, I am sorry to say I believe this is true.  All the pressures of second year make it a very difficult time and you will struggle more with your self doubt, confusion, feelings of inadequacy and sense of purpose than you ever have.  There were at least five times in the last two months where I had written a letter of resignation to my supervisor, withdrawing from my PhD.  Each time, I saved it as a draft and made myself sleep on it, promising myself I'd send it first thing in the morning.  Except when morning came, I didn't.  

I truly believe that if you make it through your second year, you're going to make it to the end.  As I said above, you end up too busy to even think about quitting, the end feels like it's finally in sight and the whole burden is easier to bear.  I'd like to leave this point with a more positive sentiment, but this is how it goes I'm afraid.  

My experiences of second year are by no means typical, and if you're reading this and thinking 'None of this has happened to me!' that's a good thing!  But I wonder if there are a lot of people going through this now, or just recovering from it, who are feeling isolated or deflated because of it, so I really wanted to write this post to let you know it does get better!  There's still a huge amount of work to be done, but you can do it.  And if any of you reading want to chat about this sort of stuff, please feel free to contact me via the Not Just Another PhD Facebook page (please leave a comment asking me to PM you), or email me at katy.ma.inglis (at) gmail.com

The Story of the Thesis

In today's long-overdue post, I want to talk a little bit about 'The Story of the Thesis'.

Creating the story of the thesis is an exercise my supervisor has me do on a semi-regular basis, and it's something I find incredibly useful, so I thought I would share so that you might be able to give it a try too.  The story, simply, is an overview of the progression of my thesis.  It looks at the overall question my thesis is trying to answer and how each chapter contributes to answering it.

Why is it so useful then?  I think it's really easy to get distracted when you're doing a PhD from what your thesis is about.  While this may be different across disciplines, in the social sciences your PhD should have one central topic, and each experimental chapter chips away at this topic, adding something new each time.  But this is quite a broad perspective to take.  When you're working the day to day, at the experiment level, the process of creating materials, deciding exactly what to do in your methodology can create new ideas for further experiments.

There have been several times I've found myself with pages of study ideas, which are all very interesting, but that don't really tie in to what my thesis is about.  Or, I have these study ideas, want to do them all, and forget what my thesis is about.  

Creating a story for your thesis (the picture above is one incarnation of mine) helps you to take that step back and examine how the studies you have planned fit in to what you actually want to say.  For me, one of the biggest reasons I did this again recently was because I wasn't sure what I wanted my central theme to be - I had a lot of ideas but they diverged and wouldn't have made a cohesive thesis structure.  By taking the time to make a story, I was able to figure out which were most important to me and pinpoint a central question for my whole body of research.

One of the best things with this as well is that you can see exactly where you're going.  After all, you are essentially creating a road map for yourself.  I now have a really great set of experiments that tie in nicely to what I want to do and I feel I can actually see how all the experiments I'm going to run tie in to each other.  I've also cut down on a lot of extra work I would have been doing for other experiments that don't actually fit in to this question after all.

Sometimes the process can be difficult.  It's hard to let your research evolve, especially if it means you have to put aside previous studies you've either completed or collected data for.  I had to do that this time, and it can be frustrating and feel like you've wasted time.  But, my research is much better for it.  I like the direction it's taking very much, I feel like I can actually do it.  What's more, I feel like it makes sense and that it would be a valuable contribution to my field.  For me as a PhD student, that feels like a really big achievement.  I'm actually really excited to see it start to take shape!

So why don't you give it a try?  Make a story of your thesis.  Even if you don't have experiments in mind, you can write down questions you'd like to answer.  Make a draft then think about whether it's too long or short, if there are gaps, if it makes sense in relation to your question and whether it tells a nice story.  It's a really nice way to get to know your thesis.  And an excellent excuse to break out the Crayola. 

Have fun!

Before I go, I want to say a huge thank you to all the readers of Not Just Another PhD.  We've just broken 10,000 hits!  For a blog that was started as a hobby during my postgraduate studies, it's amazing it's come this far.  

Thank you!

It's good to talk

So I may be borrowing a known slogan, but today, I want to discuss how good talking can be for you as a PhD student.

Much of this post is based on my experiences over the last few months.  As you'll know, it's not been the best time PhD wise.  We all go through these stages.  I can promise you, that when you start a PhD, at least  one person will tell you "Oh you're going to hate second year" or some other portion of time of your PhD that you can in no way avoid.  I'm not going to reiterate that message, I just want to throw out some ideas of what you might be able to do if you do find yourself hating your PhD.

And, if the title wasn't enough of a clue, most of my suggestions revolve around talking.

Don't be scared.

The first group I'd suggest you chat with are your peers.  There can be a lot of healthy competition (sometimes a little contention) between your peer group during a PhD.  One person gets a publication or a conference talk, another finished collecting their data while you're still finishing your first experiment.  That's always going to be going on.  But hopefully, there's at least one other PhD student within your department who you can talk to about how you're feeling.

Because guess what?  It's okay to hate your PhD sometimes.  (Not all the time.  If it's all the time, I would really suggest looking into other options...)

Your peers are some of the best people to talk to because they will have experienced what you're feeling too.  The apathy, the general frustration.  Even if they haven't got there yet, they can understand the basis of your complaints as someone with a similar experience frame.  If you don't have anyone in your department, try reaching out to friends doing PhDs in different universities or departments.  Have a chat over a coffee, a pint or an ice cream (or all three, why not?) and just get it out.  Then, when they're feeling frustrated, you can return the favour.

I wouldn't recommend just talking to your peers though.  I would suggest you speak to your supervisor too.  Now, before you get all "Oh hell no!" on me, hear me out.

Obviously, it depends on your relationship with your supervisor, but my recent experience taught me this is something you should really do.  How did I learn this?  Because I didn't do it and now realise that was really dumb.

Instead of taking my frustrations to my supervisor, my loss of confidence, my lack of a sense of direction or conviction, my general hatred of all things research, I took a holiday and disappeared for a while.  Now, while that was okay, it left some really big gaps.

My supervisor was concerned about me, having noticed these things (because guess what, your supervisor is quite clever), but didn't want to push me if I wasn't ready to talk about it.  I knew that he knew, because I'm not an idiot either.  

What stopped me then?  Fear, mostly.  Fear it would be a girly thing to do, to go whine about a PhD.  Fear of showing weakness.  Fear it would make me look incompetent, unintelligent or unable to cope with the pressures of a PhD studentship.  Fear it would result in my supervisor losing respect for me.

When I met with my supervisor yesterday and we actually started having a discussion about all this, it all came out anyway.  And we were able to sort some things out and just have a really good communication.  And I wished I had done it sooner.

It can be difficult to talk to people, for all these reasons.  But if you're stressed out, I'd really advise it.  How else are you going to tackle it?  From a brief stint working in psychological therapies, I can promise you bottling it up is the wrong way to go.  And don't worry about those people who seem to have it all together without a care in the world.  They're stressing out too.  We all do.  

It's okay to worry, and it's good to talk about it.  

That's my two cents ;)

Computer says "Not Significant"

As someone who hasn't done a Masters between my undergraduate degree and my PhD, the last time I was remotely responsible for conceiving an experiment was during my fourth year dissertation project.  Even then, it was guided by supervisor's interests and expertise.  Given the technological dramas I've had until this point in my PhD, the experiment I've been working on this semester is really my first 'baby'.

This was a project based entirely on my own interests.  I'd constructed the design from the questions I wanted to ask and the literature in the area.  I painstakingly created the materials.  (Twice).  I collected the data (twice).  The whole process took nearly two semesters.  A learning process, granted, so I'll be faster next time, but either way - a long part of this year has been spent on this one study.

So when we ran our first analysis and the computer was throwing out non-significant after non-significant result, I was gutted.  Truly, awfully gutted.  I'd invested so much time and effort and stress and work into this experiment.  How could it not have worked?

Before that experience, I'd never truly appreciated how devastating it can be when a study you've worked so hard on doesn't really come to fruition.  I thought it made a good topic for a post though, because if you've been through it too I thought you might like to commiserate.  Everyone deals with this sort of thing differently, and remember that this is just a reflection on how I felt about these things.  My perspective is quite probably different from yours.  That's okay too.  But if you've felt this way at all, sometimes it's nice to know you're not the only one ;)

So here's how it was for me.....

First of all, no one outside your academic circle will really understand.

This statement comes with a caveat, but it's an important one to remember.  Your family, partner, friends, dog, hamster will all understand that you are upset or stressed but they won't really get why.  Those lucky people who aren't doing (or haven't done) a PhD, don't really understand how pervasive the PhD becomes in your life.  The frustration and disappointment can become all-consuming.  You'll think about it lying awake at night.  In your office.  In your car.  At the cinema.  It'll keep popping into your head.  I mean, I'm doing a PhD and I don't understand how it happens.  I have a life outside my PhD, but there it is, all the time, in the back of my head.

And for that reason, however hard it is, try to be patient.

When you've explained for the fiftieth time how things went wrong, that you do/don't know what caused it, and the implications for your work, you will probably be ready to punch someone in the face.  (Though that might just be me...)  Try to remember these people are asking because they care, not because they're trying to remind you of your perceived failure.  (And that perceived is the key word there, more on that in a minute).

If it's getting really tough, stick to a strong, unequivocal statement: "I really don't want to talk about my research just now.  We need to talk about something else.  How is you [work/love life/dog/sibling/mother....]?"

You will (if you're like me) feel a crushing sense of self-doubt.

A PhD is a high-stress, high-pressure route to take.  When things go wrong, even if they're not your fault, the sense of guilt or failure can be strong.  If you've identified the problem and you really did make a mistake, do your best to address it.  If it can be fixed with some more testing, a rejigging of the analysis, do it.  Working on fixing the problem will make help you keep going.

But whether the mistake lies at your feet or if it has some unidentified source, you need to remember:

This is not the end of the world.

It might feel like it.  Thoughts have the tendency to run away with themselves.  An example from my own head: "If these results aren't significant that means I can't present them at the conference or submit a paper.  That blows a chance of a publication.  If I don't have enough publications I'm not going to be able to compete on the job market.  If I can't compete, I can't get a job.  That would mean this has all been a waste of time!!"

See what I mean?  I feel stressed just reading that.

But it took a gentle reminder from one of the lecturers here that, in science, 98% of experiments won't get significant results and that is okay. You've got to remember that a PhD is an apprenticeship - a chance to learn how to research.  

A good friend and fellow PhD student also reminded me that a PhD is often a series of firsts.  Your first time running a particular paradigm, analysis, using an experiment builder, eye tracker, whatever.  You don't always know what went wrong because you're still just a little science grasshopper.  It's not really until you defend that you have sufficient knowledge and understanding in your area that would allow you to go back and modify the experiment to (hopefully) get the results you'd wanted.

Ultimately, when things like this happen, the hard truth is that you've just got to keep going.  I'm not denying there were a couple of days I called up my aforementioned good friend asking her to talk me off the quitting ledge.  But you keep going.  You keep trying to figure things out.

Eventually, with enough poking and prodding we identified the problem.  The program I used to run the experiment had been showing different stimuli than I though, so once I recoded for that we were able to rerun the analysis and hey presto, we found something.  But that's not really the moral of this story.  The moral is to keep going.  You are always learning something, whether your results are significant or not. 

Keep going, you can do it!


EDIT: So I maybe didn't make this clear enough, but this post was meant to be reflective of my experiences when I didn't get the expected results for my study.  I thought it might be useful if anyone else had felt this way too.  If you haven't, that's great and don't worry about it!  And, to reiterate, I don't think that if your results are non-significant (i.e. not below the arbitrary alpha of .05) your work is meaningless.  I was only saying I felt that way at the time.  With a little perspective and some friendly reminders from friends and colleagues, I realised this was just another way to learn something new about the area I'm interested in.  Hope that clears things up!

Katy

Since Not Just Another PhD is nearly at 10,000 hits - a big milestone - I'm hosting a giveaway over on our Facebook page.  For your chance to win a SIGNED copy of Piled Higher and Deeper (PhD) comics book, head over to the Facebook page for details on how to enter!

PhD: Now vs. Then

Today's post was written by Professor Trevor Harley, Dean of the School of Psychology at the University of Dundee, Scotland.  Professor Harley specialises in the psychology of language, particularly speech production and high-level cognition.  He also has his own blog - The Science of Self-Improvement.

I did my PhD in experimental psychology in the early eighties at Cambridge. It was a good place and a good time to do it; in many respects those were the best years of my life. Things were very different then: we had much more freedom and fewer obligations. It was more like the USA now; although we only had funding for three years, no one was that bothered if we took longer. Neither did we have to take any courses. Essentially on 1 October I moved into my office and was left alone to think and do what I wanted, if indeed I wanted to do anything at all.

Needless to say therefore I spent most of my time doing nothing. Wine, women, and song are my predominant memories of most of my postgraduate years. Then somehow I caught glandular fever in my second year and was laid low for several months. At the end of all that I realised I had to pull my act together and get on with things, and somehow managed to collect a lot of data and write up the first complete draft of my thesis by the end of the third year. I also realised the importance of publishing, and got a good paper out in Cognitive Science that I am proud to say has stood the test of time and is still regularly cited today. I can only put this extraordinary foresight down to luck.

So in many respects I think things are much better now, and I envy the PhD students of today for several reasons.

1. In general there are more PhD students and many more MSc students around than in my day. I did feel fairly isolated at times. I think there are now more new PhD students at Dundee each year than there were even in Cambridge over three years in my time.

2. In retrospect I would have liked a few courses, particularly on advanced statistics, to give me training and provide structure to my time. But not too many.

3. I think half yearly thesis monitoring committees and minuted meetings with your supervisor are, in spite of seemingly being a bit bureaucratic, very useful. I wouldn't have drifted anywhere near as much if I had had regular deadlines.

4. I wish we had had regular postgraduate seminars. I think these are an invaluable resource and the more you put into them the more you get out. A few of us set up an informal reading party, but it was really too small. The first talk I gave in my life was my first job interview.

5. The pressure to finish in three years is good because it means you get it out of the way early, and are forced to work hard on it from the beginning. I know it's more stressful, and I suspect the pressure has driven down the size and scope of PhD theses. Finishing within three years means really only two months of effective testing.

6. There is pressure to publish as you go along with your PhD research because it's difficult to get jobs otherwise. While undoubtedly very stressful, it does mean your name can be out there from an early stage.

So many of the things that people now get down about - deadline, pressure, seminars, meetings, courses - are in fact I think advantageous, and when you've finished (as you will) you'll come back to look upon them fondly and appreciate the good they've done.

On the other hand I do miss the freedom, the space to do what I want to do, the fun of going to a bar at 5pm and talking new ideas with friends, making acquaintances of all sorts, and the feeling that everything is new and exciting. I had plenty of ups and downs when doing my PhD, but I found the feeling of finding out new things about human behaviour that NO ONE has ever discovered before to be unbeatable. It's a wonderful opportunity to think about what you want to do with your life and come to appreciate the beauty of science. 

And science, like all good drugs, is addictive. You will have bad days, or weeks, or possibly months, but they are more than compensated for by the highs. My tip for dealing with the ups and downs to make a very explicit plan for yourself. You have long-term goals (get the PhD in three years, get a paper), medium-term goals (write that thesis monitoring committee report, write a method section), and short-term goals (run ten participants, make up a list of new materials). Correlate those goals with a plan; keep a to do list and track your progress using a calendar. If you have a bad day or week you can see that in the bigger context of things it doesn't make much difference.

Of course, you might be very unlucky and that bad month turns into months. In that case you need to talk to someone urgently. Treat your supervisor as your friend. Talk to your peers; never isolate yourself.

And finally nothing beats the thrill of getting to be called "Doctor" (until you get to be called Professor)!

Making Mistakes

There is going to come a time at some point during your PhD where you have the sudden, sickening realisation that you have made a mistake.  If you're anything like me, there will be a moment of quiet panic.  You'll double and triple check - I didn't really do that did I?!  You'll probably swear several times under your breath, with increasing volume the harder it hits you.  

People underestimate the physical reaction we can have to stress like this.  But I promise you, when you get to this point, you'll find yourself deciding between the vying instincts of throwing your computer out the window (fight) or packing up your stuff and getting the hell out of there, crawling under your duvet and pretending it never happened (flight).

Perfectly natural responses.  I'd encourage you not to throw your computer out the window (especially if it's not yours) but who am I to judge?  However, this post is about figuring out what to do after that point.  How are you going to deal with your mistake?

To put things into context, I'll tell you about the mistake I made.  I spent all of February collecting data for my experiment.  We ran a super-quick analysis to get provisional results so that I could submit for a conference, the abstract deadline of which was the 1st of March.  Success!  But then, when we got into further analysis, I realised I'd made a big mistake.  The counterbalancing on six out of the eight versions of my experiment was wrong.  (N.B. If you don't know what counterbalancing is, just understand this was a big mistake).

At this point, I hadn't told my supervisor.  I swore at my computer a lot, packed up, went home and had a very, very large drink.  Then had thai food.  (That helped, I'd advise the thai food).  The next day, I started on correcting the counterbalancing, emailed my supervisor and told them straight up that I'd made a mistake. I explained I didn't know where I went wrong, but provided him with the steps I'd be taking to ensure it didn't happen again.

What made me think about writing this post though, is the number of people who asked why I bothered to fess up at all.  Could you not just have got away with it? they asked.  Personally, I have an absolutely crappy poker face, so I felt that was a no-go.  What's more, I knew I'd have to include some of this stuff in my Appendices, and I could imagine the horror of being questioned on it in my viva.  Eeek!

So if you make a mistake here is my tried and tested advice:

Take a day.  You're going to need it.  Take 24 hours to get away from the situation, get your head out of the game, and pretend it didn't happen.  

Tackle it first thing.  The next day, you need to get straight back up on that horse.  Don't even think about the road ahead for fixing your mistake.  I knew I'd have to recollect all my data, but thinking about that was too daunting, so I focused on just getting the counterbalancing right first.

Fess up.  Personally, I think you need to be honest when you make a mistake.  After all, it is how we learn.  You're not expected to be perfect just yet.  It's not comfortable owning up to it, but if that gives you incentive not to do it again, that's a pretty strong motivator.

Try and figure out where you went wrong.  Sometimes you just have no idea, but if you can pinpoint a mistake, make a note for yourself, flag it up some how, so next time it doesn't happen.

Let your supervisor know what you're doing to fix the problem.  While mistakes are allowed, you've got to be proactive with them.  Figure out the steps you need to take and detail where you are on them.  Ask if there's something you'd like double check or explained more clearly - this is your chance to make sure you're learning everything you need to.

Just keep your head down.  Fixing things might be quick, but in all likelihood it'll involve quite a lot of work.  It might even be re-doing work you've already done.  You've just got to take it a day at a time, otherwise the computer-window scenario begins to look more favourable.  A day at a time.

Talk to someone who isn't your supervisor.  I have the fortune of being friends with one of our great new(ish) lecturers in the department.  She's funny, kind, and more importantly I felt she'd understand where I was coming from.  I needed someone to talk about the awfulness of it all, who had (a) been through it, (b) would understand and (c) have the perspective to offer valuable advice.  If you know someone like this, contact them straight away and ask for a coffee/hot chocolate/lunch!

Try and keep a sense of humour about it.  You know that saying, laugh or you'll cry?  It's true.  I came home, poured myself a drink, and told The Boy "Katy the ****ing genius strikes again."  It was either that or burst into tears, and I needed to talk to people about what had happened so crying each time wasn't an option.  It's difficult because it feels raw at first but you can manage.

My last word on the matter is to expect to take a huge hit to your self-confidence.  You'll question everything.  You won't trust yourself to do the most simple of procedures.  I think this is inevitable too, and will only improve over time.  I'm in that stage now.  But I still think that by doing what I did, I made it easier for myself.  

You might have different ways of dealing with this sort of thing, but if you get to this point, I feel for you.  It sucks.  But you'll get through it. 

One day at a time.  :)

Why I decided to do a PhD

When I first started this blog back in 2011, I wrote a post about how I'd come to the decision to do a PhD.  There are a lot of posts from those early days that might be useful to new PhD students.  However, sometimes I think that a little experience, a little time and the benefit of hindsight can bring a new perspective on past decisions, and while the reasons I cited in that post still stand, I think there are some I didn't mention or didn't even realise I'd considered.

Some of you may think this post is a little strange.  I wasn't hugely motivated by grand sentiment; instead my motivations had smaller beginnings.  When you put them together, they become a stronger and more cohesive foundation.  But sometimes I think it's important to highlight the little things, because sometimes it's the little things that get you through.  I also think that you can feel a little inferior if you don't have a 'big' reason to do a PhD.  If that applies to you, I hope this post makes you feel a little better.

First of all, I think my personality had a lot to do with it.  From a very young age I was very driven by academic achievement.  Gold stars were my be all and end all.  I am also a completionist - I like to get all of something.  In gaming terms, that would be all the achievements for a game.  But in 'Real Life' terms, over the years that included colouring in, badges at Brownies or Guides, exam grades, Pokémon...  I get this buzz of fulfillment from completing something and from growing a collection of achievements.  In some ways, I think this contributes to my 'need' to do a PhD.  I won't feel properly fulfilled until I have reached that pinnacle of academic qualification, until I have 'collected them all'.  

I'd also add that this slightly (cough) neurotic tendency is helpful when it comes to the more mundane side of research.  The desire to see something finished or completed is helpful when faced with a mind-bending counterbalancing problem or 350 image files needing coded.  My brain is wired to give me a sense of reward just for finishing the task.

Another reason I decided to do a PhD is because I liked the idea of being a professional scientist.  I had this vision of myself in a personalised office pacing about spouting ideas and having eureka moments left, right and centre.  The thought of seeing my name printed on something I'd written almost produced a wriggle of glee.  In reality, my PhD is nothing like this.  I do have an office, granted, which I have decorated, but there's no pacing, no spouting of ideas.  I've learned that ideas grow slowly.  You have to nurture them.  Tend to them.  And also that the customary attire is jeans rather than lab coat.

When I really think about it though, I think my main reason for wanting to do a PhD is because I needed a sense of purpose.  I wanted to be something.  Now, I'll make it clear I don't think you should wander blindly into a PhD because you want to do something with your life but you're not sure what.  I fitted a lot of the requirements of someone wanting to do a PhD academically, and there were a lot of practical reasons why it worked for me (which I discussed in the linked post, so won't go into here).

What I mean though is that when I started out, I didn't really know what being a PhD student was like or the realities of academic life.  I felt like I wanted to be someone reasonably clever, who learned things and researched things and taught things.  In a nutshell, that's still what I want to do, but I have a clearer sense of what that means for me.

I decided to do a PhD so I could learn reach my academic potential.  So that I could be 'Dr Katy' and a scientist and researcher by trade.  I decided to do a PhD so I could teach people, so I could be paid to ask questions about the world and discover new things about it.  I think a quote by John Green says it best:

I decided to do a PhD so I could be a nerd forever.  I could get excited about small things, which can translate into bigger and more meaningful things.  That's the sort of person I am - the sort that gets excited about little things.  Gold stars and badge collecting.  For me, that's what a PhD is.  It's the chance to learn how to professionally get excited about these things.  And at the end of the day, that's all I need.

5 things I wish I'd known before I started my PhD

Today's post comes from Dr Juliet Wakefield, a post-doctoral research in Social Psychology at the University of Dundee.  She completed her PhD in 2011 (also at the University of Dundee) - her thesis examined the social psychology of help-seeking and help-receiving.  Juliet has kindly agreed to write a piece for this blog about the things she wishes she had known before she started her PhD.  I think this is a must read for anyone doing or thinking about a PhD, Masters or even undergraduate dissertation.

The first thing to mention is that, obviously, no two PhD journeys are the same.  My specific experience of doing a Social Psychology PhD at a Scottish university (and the things I learned during that experience) are likely to be very different to somebody doing a PhD in a different discipline or at a different institution.  However, I have tried to cover quite general issues in the list below, so I hope that at least some of the five points will be relevant to most PhD students.  With that in mind, let's start the list.

1.  It doesn't have to be perfect

During my PhD I always had this image in my head that my thesis was going to be the best and most perfect thing I would ever do - that all my experiments had to be designed perfectly, that my methodology and statistical techniques had to be selected with flawless logic and that even the tiniest typo could not be tolerated.  In reality, this image is very far from the truth, and the sooner you accept that, the calmer you will feel.

The whole point of a PhD is that the process is a training exercise: a rather intense 3-4 year period in which you learn and develop in many different ways.  So just as a first year undergraduate's thinking and writing is expected to evolve and improve over the course of a degree, so a postgraduate is expected to show evidence of learning and development over the course of a PhD.

This is a rather long-winded way of reaching a simple point: your PhD does not have to be perfect.  In fact, it's often better to show you can readily identify your mistakes, acknowledge them and ultimately learn from them.  For instance, some of my early experiments had some definite design weaknesses, which stressed me out greatly.  However, over time, I learned not to focus on these weaknesses,  Instead, I acknowledged them in the experiment's Discussion, and explored how I could develop my next experiment in a way that would address these weaknesses.  This meant that I could keep myself calm whilst showing my advances in thinking and reasoning - a double bonus.  Let go of the concept of perfecting during your PhD and you will almost certainly see your stress levels decline.

2.  A minimum of one major thing will happen in your personal life during your PhD

You may have heard this before, but it does seem to be a scarily accurate prediction: the majority of people I know have experienced at least one major event (positive and/or negative) during their PhD.  You may have heard of the Social Readjustment Rating Scale, which rates (out of 100) the extent to which each of a number of important events (such as bereavement or marriage) impacts upon our lives.  

However when you are already facing the challenges of a PhD, even pretty 'minor' events, such as a change is residence (rated 20) or trouble with the in-laws (rated 29) can feel hugely stressful.  This highlights a key issue that all PhD students should think about from day one: the importance of having access to support and help if it is needed.  If you are lucky then you will have a supportive supervisor who will provide you with social/emotional assistance as well as academic guidance, but there are many other sources that you can turn to for help - friends, family, other members of your institution, counsellors, therapists and so on.  

The key thing I learned here (mainly because it was my PhD topic) is that it's important to identify when you have a problem and to ask for help when you need it.  It's probably one of the best things you can do to help improve your chances of having a positive PhD experience.

Talking about the Social Readjustment Rating Scale, I was quite surprised to find that completing my PhD scored close to 100 for me.  Finishing your PhD can be a rather traumatic experience (I imagine it is something like watching a child leave home for the first time) and 'Post Thesis Depression' is pretty common - I certainly experienced it.  I'm not writing this to worry you, it just means that it is important to have sources of support available to you at all stages of your PhD, from day one until after your viva.  It will make things so much more manageable if you have at least one person you trust who can share the highs and the lows with you. 

3. Stop comparing your PhD journey with the journeys of others

This is not an easy task, but it is important to keep trying.  Like many PhD students, I wasted a lot of time comparing myself with others, and feeling the inevitable guilt that is the product of such comparisons.  When I went home and other students’ office lights were still on, I worried that I wasn’t working hard enough, or that I wasn’t working for long enough.  I worried that I wasn’t reading the right things, or going to the right conferences, or learning the right statistical techniques. While it is important to try to improve yourself and your skills, you should not be motivated by feelings of guilt or inadequacy.  Every person’s PhD journey is different, so comparing the specifics within them usually makes as much sense as comparing apples and oranges.  Focus on trying to become more confident within your own journey, rather than seeking reassurance by comparing yourself with others.

4. Make the most of opportunities which arise

Rather than comparing yourself with others, the best way to feel more confident about your PhD journey is to take advantage of any opportunities that come your way.  Go on training courses and attend conferences and workshops (if you have the time and money, of course).  Not only will they widen your skills and your experience, they will allow you to meet new people and see the widely different PhD journeys that exist around the world.  My supervisor encouraged me to start presenting my work at conferences from early on in my PhD, and he also encouraged me to start writing up my research for publication as soon as possible.  Taking advantage of these opportunities has given me more confidence to present my work to others, and has led to me having two journal articles based on my thesis data accepted for publication.  Of course, you should not feel guilty if time or financial constraints mean that pursuing a particular opportunity is not possible, but it is definitely worth trying to take advantage of at least a few.   

5. You may not see the big picture until late in the day

My final point encapsulates a few issues.  First, I had quite intense anxiety early in my PhD regarding the sheer scale of the task - I could not comprehend how I was going to be able to write so much.  Seeing the length of other people’s theses (comparing myself with others again) made me almost shiver with dread.  Related to this was a strong sense of not being able to see the wood for the trees: I was reading all these papers and running all these experiments, but I never really got a sense of what the bigger picture was, and how it all added up.  These two concerns were definitely related for me, and did not resolve themselves until quite late in the day. 

The truth (for me at least) was that it was the process of writing itself, which allowed me to see the big picture of my thesis: how things linked together, how the thread of logic ran through the chapters, and what the overall implications of my work were.  I found that the more I wrote, the better my sense of the bigger picture became, and in turn, the more I could write about that bigger picture.  Suddenly I had a better understanding of what the theory-based chapters that opened my thesis needed to say so that the reader would understand the context and relevance of my own studies.  I had written the Method sections for my experiments as I had run each one (which I would definitely recommend doing), but suddenly I had a better sense of how these different experiments linked together and how to convey their relevance to the reader. Ultimately, writing up your thesis can be frustrating and rewarding in equal measure, but don’t be alarmed if you do not get a good sense of your thesis (and ‘what it all means’) until quite a late stage.

I hope you found at least some of these tips useful. Doing a PhD has definitely been the best experience of my life so far, but like any experience, it takes time to find your feet and work out the best way to deal with the challenges and issues that will inevitably arise during this intense process. It is better to think of a PhD as a marathon rather than a sprint: you need to look at ways to increase your strength and your stamina, so that you still have the resources to allow you to pick yourself up and get back on track if (or, more likely, when) you fall over. Anyway, all that is left to say is best wishes and good luck, and that you will deserve a massive party once it is all done!

Is a PhD the right choice for you?

We're at that time of year again when all the PhD vacancies are sprouting up and you might - if you're not a PhD student already - be thinking about applying for a post.  Over the next two weeks, Not Just Another PhD will have a series of posts about PhDs and deciding whether they're the right choice for you.  It's a big decision after all!

Our original artwork today is by Debbie Malcolm.

So, you're nearly finished your undergraduate degree or maybe a Masters, and you're thinking about taking your academic studies further.  The pinnacle of academic achievement - the PhD.  But then, the thing is, there tends to be a lot of mysticism around PhDs.  What are they?  What do they involve?  What do you really need to be considering before you apply or accept a position?

There are a huge number of answers to those questions and if you're already a PhD student, you might feel I'm missing some out (in which case please share your thoughts in the comments!) but I'm going to do my best to cover the biggies.

What's a PhD Anyway?

You couldn't ever describe the ins and outs of everything involved in what exactly a PhD is in a short section, so I'll do my best to summarise.  And also, please note my experience is from a science-based PhD so it's a little different than an Arts one.  

For a sciencey PhD in a UK institution, you are normally given four years to complete your work.  At the end of those four years you submit a thesis (also referred to as a dissertation) which is between 80,000 - 100,000 words in length.  Essentially you're producing a book with a series of chapters.  You start with an introductory chapter (your literature review) then perhaps a methodology chapter if you are using complex equipment.  You'll follow this up with experimental chapters that are in the same format as journal articles, just longer, before finishing with a discussion chapter, references and appendices.

Handing in your thesis isn't quite the end though.  You need to complete an oral defence - a viva - of your work.  Format varies slightly country to country, but in the UK you have an internal examiner, who is an expert in the area, or related area, from within your department (but not your supervisor) and an external examiner.  You'll also have a convener present, who keeps things running smoothely.  You need to pass this oral defence and make any changes they suggest before you can graduate and officially be called "Doctor".

The Practical Requirements

As with everything these days, entry to PhD programmes are getting more competitive.  You will need a 1st or usually a high band 2:1 (which is one consisting of some As and the rest Bs), but all universities are different and will state their requirements clearly in the advertisement.  All is not lost though if you get a 2:2.  In that case, I'd recommend enrolling in a Masters first to demonstrate your capabilities.

Some universities might also look for research experience, so if see if you can get some voluntary research experience - it's a great boost to your CV.  If your department doesn't have an existing research apprenticeship scheme, email lecturers and see if there's anything you can do to help.  It might just be coding, data entry or something similar, but I can tell you from experience that these things make a huge difference.

Other Considerations

A PhD is different from any other type of qualification you'll have undertaken before.  Your end-of-first-year assessment and final hand in aside, you have very little in the way of concrete deadlines.  The free-form work style can be very unnerving for some people, so you need to think about whether you'd be able to work well under those conditions.

You need to think about finances too.  There are a lot of organisations and charities you can apply to for funding, and your potential supervisor will advise you on ones appropriate to your situation.  I have known some people who were so determined to do a PhD they took out a loan to finance their fees and living costs.  Unless you have a very stable financial background, I would not recommend this.  Go get some more experience, sign up for a Masters if you want, but I think it's too big an investment in this day and age.  But that's just my two cents.

Other questions might involve more thought, and not just on your part.  Are you able to move to do a PhD?  Do you have family, a partner or children who might also be affected by this?  More importantly - are you willing to move?  The answer doesn't necessarily have to be yes.  If, for example, your partner has a career where you live, you might not want to throw that away for you to pursue a PhD.  That doesn't rule out a PhD for you, but it might limit your options.  It's all things you need to think about.

A final note...

So far, despite all its hardships, doing my PhD has been one of the best things I've ever done in my life.  I love it (even when I hate it).  But I'm not going to lie to you, PhDs are really, really hard.  There are times when you feel so lonely and isolated and frustrated and angry at it all it drives you crazy.  I wouldn't want anyone to sign up thinking it'll all be sunshine and rainbows because sadly that's not the case.

I'm not trying to put a downer on your excitement.  I remember how exciting it was when I was applying for PhDs!  I just think it's important to make this decision in an informed way. I still think that it's one of the most rewarding things a person can do.  If you want a career in research or academia, it's a perfect choice for you.  There are so many positives - what you'll learn about your subject and about yourself, chances to travel for conferences, friends you'll make, people you'll meet, things you'll do.  And as long as you know it's the right decision for you that will, ultimately, get you through anything.

There's already a lot of advice on this blog (and more to come!) and others like it about how to cope with difficulties you'll encounter along the way.  What you need to think about now is getting started.  And if you decide a PhD is for you, welcome aboard.  It's a crazy journey, but it's a fun one.