A Reflection

Starting one of these is a bit like starting a PhD; it seems overwhelming with simply a blank sheet in front of you and only guidance from those around you who have done similar things. I think it is easy to underestimate, for those who haven’t decided to put themselves through the process of a doctorate, the challenges that can occur throughout a PhD and the broken-hearted feeling that can often come as a result of months worth of work that turns out to be a dead end. When I started a PhD, people told me it was about 95% pain and 5% pleasure, and on reflection, this seems pretty accurate. The process taught me much about myself and how science and life work. As I sit here processing what I hope to be my last set of data, I question whether if I knew of all the trials and tribulations that would come over the next three years, would I still do my PhD and would I recommend doing a PhD to those who are driven to do research. To me, there is a simple answer.

Yes

That being said, I wish there were some basic things that I had appreciated going into a PhD. These aren’t great leaps of science or massive theoretical knowledge. Instead, they are things that are easy to forget in the first year or that you may not appreciate through a PhD. I’ve broken these concepts into five key lessons I wish I had known when I started. These are written in context of a Engineering or Experimental Science based PhDs, but there is no reason the lessons cannot be translated to any other type.

Lesson 1 – Start

One of the things that can be hardest with a PhD is understanding where to start. Generally, the briefs you are given are extensive; therefore, understanding how to break them down into manageable tasks can be challenging. Supervisors will naturally help with this by guiding you towards particular things. Still, fundamentally, it is your research, and you get to make all the decisions. This is scary when you have come from projects where lecturers have much more input on your work and generally know where the project will end up. In this, they don’t. That’s why they got you in to help!

So, start. Think about the easiest thing you could do to either further what you know or start testing some hypotheses. Reading is excellent when you start a PhD, but NOTHING beats being in the lab. I still struggle at times with nerves going into the lab (see Lessons 2 and 3), which is entirely normal. But even a simple test will often teach you something you wouldn’t have thought about. So do something, anything. You will find natural next steps will come if you do. And if they don’t, that is the time to take a step back, have a read and come up with a new idea. At least you will have made a start.

Lesson 2 – Saying “I Don’t Know” is Great

One of the most significant differences between a regular degree and a PhD is the knowledge poll that you are drawing from. Throughout your degree in STEM, you work with definite answers to most of your questions. Therefore, by definition, you learn what you must know. In a PhD, not only are you breaking new ground and acquiring new knowledge, you start not even having a concept of all the theories you might need. Certainly, when I started mine, I didn’t even know turbophoresis existed, let alone the fact it would become such a crucial part of my PhD. It isn’t the fact you don’t know stuff that’s scary; it is that you don’t know what you don’t know. The 1^st year of a PhD is about learning this. It is terrifying when you first realise how much you truly know and what a tiny proportion of the knowledge of the field you are working in you have.

AND THAT IS OK

One of the most significant moments in my PhD was when I sat crying in my supervisor’s office, talking about how I didn’t have a clue what was going on after my first batch of testing. They looked at me, smiled and said, yeah, we don’t have any idea either, but this is great. I was so so confused. Should I know what is going on? Shouldn’t this be obvious? And shouldn’t these geniuses also have a better idea? Is my work this bad? No to all of the above. Supervisors may have theories or broad concepts, but no one will know. Knowing will only come with time, vast data processing, and additional testing. And that is OK! Saying I don’t know doesn’t mean you have failed, but it means you are on the edge of something new and in a PhD, that is awesome! Like, it is the whole point of a PhD.

Saying I don’t know is often the start of a path to a new piece of knowledge.

Lesson 3 – Everything is Bad the First Time Around

So you have gotten over the fear of I don’t know. You have done your first thing, and then suddenly, your first abstract gets sent back by supervisors with so much red on it that it looks like it came from a Tarantino film. You do your first test, and something breaks. You try and read a paper, and it might as well be in Klingon for all you understand. Suddenly,

Imposter Syndrome hits

You feel inadequate and foolish for even thinking you could do your PhD. This feeling has been, by far and away, my biggest challenge through my PhD. The fear of failure becomes so paralysing that you don’t know if you can do it, and you start questioning every decision you make, slowing progress to a halt. For me, and with the type of anxiety I have, this has been an enormous source of stress and has been something I have had a lot of therapy to overcome. For most, though, it is about understanding a straightforward truth: when you or anyone starts their PhD, they will mess up. A lot. And that is part of the process.

PhD life is all about learning to be OK with doing something badly, so long as you have tried your best to understand and improve for the next time. It is about learning about a new thing and giving it a go, and accepting it the first time you do it, there will be mistakes, and that is OK, so long as you learn and don’t make the same mistake again. This is as true for designing a rig to do testing as writing your first paper. Hey, it is true for this blog post. Hopefully, in 5, 10 or 15 blogs time, I will look back at this and think about all the ways I could improve it; that is a sign I have grown.

Lesson 4 – We Are a Community

A PhD is a very lonely process. I am fortunate enough with mine that I have someone who has become a good mate, working on a very similar problem at the same time as me. Still, for most, a PhD can feel like a solitary adventure. And this is inevitable when trying to find a new and unique piece of knowledge to give to the world. However, just because you are heading your research doesn’t mean you have to do it alone. PhDs often sit in communal offices, and these people will, in your time, become like family to you. They are the ones you will celebrate successes with and, more often, shout after another frustrating day of something not working as it should in the lab.

Your office will be filled with people doing the PhD on the same time scale as you and people who are at the end of their PhD or may even be post-doctoral researchers. These people are invaluable sources of advice and support. They will help you with everything, from helping you carry something to the lab to running a test that needs two people to be practical, demonstrating how some code works, to giving feedback on your latest paper. I gave a mock presentation once to my group that was, frankly, awful. I was confused, and the outcome was a presentation without structure or story. We spent an hour with them, giving me feedback and guidance on what I should do differently with this presentation. I then took a grenade to the presentation and completely redid it, taking all their feedback and ensuring it was way better. It was. In fact, it went on to win an international award.

This support is a two-way street, and it is essential that should fellow researchers need your help, you do your best to help them, but like Dumbledore says to Harry: “You will also find that help will always be given at Hogwarts to those who ask for it.”. It is impossible to truly do a PhD alone, even if it will be your name on the front cover of the thesis.

Lesson 5 – Have A Life

So this is the one of the five that I was fortunate enough to get right for most of my PhD, but sometimes I still forget, and it is something I see PhD’s around me forget all the time.

When you spend your life trying to, in essence, one question for at least three years, it is normal for that question to keep drilling into your head, day in and day out. The number of times I have thought to myself: “Yeah, but why does the fume do that?” over the last three years might outdo the number of grains of sand on a 7-mile beach. But it is important to remember that the world keeps spinning outside of your work and that, often, to do your best work, you must be fresh and ready to attack the day. 60-hour weeks happen, especially when a deadline is ahead, and you have inevitably got a brilliant, critical piece of data with insufficient time to fit it all in.

But it is essential to keep stuff going on in your life that isn’t your PhD. For me, that is volunteering for a listening service, coaching American football, and spending time with my girlfriend and friends at home or in pubs. For you, that may be drawing, riding horses or even skydiving. It doesn’t matter what it is, so long as it has nothing to do with your PhD. Even if you love the thing you are researching, you can become mentally fatigued with time and a day, a weekend, or a week just doing something completely different can be what you need. It is incredible how many breakthroughs I have had on a Monday or when I have just returned from a few days on holiday enjoying a cocktail or whisky. PhDs are a bit like working in medicine; they become a lifestyle more than a job, but knowing where to draw the line is still essential.

Thanks for taking the time to read, and I am always happy to answer questions with any of my posts. My email is at the bottom of the page!