Calum Carson is a doctoral researcher in the Centre for Employment Relations, Innovation and Change (CERIC), University of Leeds.
Embarking on a PhD is a daunting task for anybody, and it
is a very rare researcher who gets to the end of their project and thinks “I
wouldn’t have done anything differently”. A doctoral degree is a steep learning
curve, and the sheer length of time involved in conducting research and writing
a thesis almost necessitates a degree of error over those years: there is no
such thing as a “perfect PhD”, sadly, but there is such a thing as good practice. The following advice is given in
this context, and looks to provide new doctoral researchers with some building
blocks in how to establish effective habits from day one.
Find a routine that works for you: One of the most valuable aspects
of a PhD is the freedom to almost entirely decide on your own working schedule
and routine, and this is something that you should take full advantage of to
figure out what works best for you. Some people work best by working a strict
9-5 in the office surrounded by other doctoral researchers, while others work
best alone in coffee shops with their headphones on; for others they may prefer
to work from home, or to run errands and relax in the morning before working
later into the evening. For some, it may be a steady mix of all the above. It
is useful to experiment with working in different ways and in different
environments to see what you prefer, and what gets the most results: it’s
unlikely that you’ll ever have a job with this much freedom to dictate your
schedule again, so make the most of it!
Finding a decent work-life balance is crucial: While it is
important to establish what working routine works best for you, it is just as
important to maintain a healthy work-life balance between your research and the
rest of your life. A PhD by its very nature can feel all-consuming very easily,
with you being solely responsible for your own project and nobody else
understanding it as well as you do, but it is essential to remember that it is
not your entire life: everyone needs rest and relaxation, and you will find
that you are much better equipped to deal with the more difficult aspects of
your research when you are well rested and have had some time away from it
(even when it feels like you just don’t have the time). See here
for a useful (and non-preachy) guide as to why this is so important, and how to
embed boundaries between your research and your personal life into your
routine.
Plan ahead carefully for things that are out of your control: Make
sure that you’re well organised far in advance of deadlines and procedures for
things that are out of your control, and may require a lengthy process and/or
degree of work and organisation from those at the receiving end. An example of
this would be planning, writing, and submitting a paper to a journal earlier
rather than later owing to the sometimes-extensive peer review process that no
hard work on your part will speed up, or asking for interview dates with
research participants far in advance so that they have enough time to plan
their own schedules accordingly.
Be prepared for some things to go wrong: For a project as long and
comprehensive as a PhD, you don’t just need effective planning and organisational
skills: you also need a high degree of luck. Almost all researchers experience
setbacks in their research, from participants or case studies unexpectedly
dropping out to surveys not being completed, and many of these setbacks will be
factors that are beyond your control to have anticipated. The important thing
is to prepare yourself for the possibility that such circumstances may occur
and to react accordingly, rather than panicking that it has derailed
everything: more often than not, there are always alternative solutions in
reach. There may also be
Write, write, write: The most useful advice I was ever given
for my PhD, and that I see replicated in almost every advice blog
post/article/book I come across, was to write, write, write, and to do this
from the start. It is a common pitfall for PhD students to almost fetishize and
idealise the actual writing aspect of a thesis, and to leave it until later and
later “until I’m ready and everything else is in place”, at which point the sheer
scale of the writing ahead of you feels like an intimidating and insurmountable
task. It is much more effective to eliminate this fear before it’s even begun
to manifest by starting to write almost immediately from the beginning of your
PhD: you won’t end up using everything you scribble down in the final version
of your thesis, but through that writing you’ll develop a keener familiarity
and expertise with both your project and being able to describe and explain
your research, as well as eliminating a psychological fear further down the
line. Writing can also be a great way of brainstorming and working through
practical or conceptual difficulties with your project, too: see here
and here
for some tips on this.
Make the most of
your supervisors: Your supervisors are a crucial resource in helping a PhD
project run smoothly, and you should make the most of this incredible source of
knowledge and support at your fingertips. They will be able to advise you not
just on your specific topic and the field you are contributing to, but on the
nuts and bolts of research design, the most effective ways to structure your
thesis, how to distil the findings of your literature review, and much more. Also
remember that not only are they experts in the fields that you are researching,
but in most circumstances, they will have also been through the PhD process
themselves: never be afraid to ask for their advice on something for fear of
sounding silly, as odds are, they were once sat in your position thinking the
exact same thing.
Engage with your
department: One important way of ensuring that a PhD does not become an
isolating experience is to engage and get involved with the wider department
that you are based in, and becoming part of both the postgraduate and wider
academic community. Most university department’s calendars come packed with an
extensive list of seminars, lectures and training sessions occurring on a
regular basis: attending some of these, and interacting and socialising with
your academic colleagues, is an important and rewarding aspect of any PhD.
More than anything else, however, remember that a PhD is
a long and hard journey at times, but it is also an immensely satisfying and
worthwhile one: take the time to enjoy it while
you’re doing it, rather than just retrospectively. The above advice won’t
shield you entirely from experiencing any difficulties during your projects,
but it will, I hope, give you some resources and resilience to know how to be
able to bounce back and push through those times.
And good luck!
