Things I wish someone had told me when I was doing my Phd

[alias_sqbr]

I have no idea how relevant this is to other people (especially those who actually are cut out for academia!), but thought I should get it down before the whole thing becomes a blur. Very much based on my experiences as a computational mathematics student in Australia. This is just off the top of my head, I may add to this later.

Two major things:

• (Pretty much) every single Phd student ever feels like a lazy failure. Seriously, read Piled Higher and Deeper, it's not just you.
  
• If part of your motivation in life up until now has been jumping through a set of hoops to prove how clever you are let it go.
  

And expanding on those a bit:

• Your Phd doesn't have any feelings. It will not be hurt or stop letting you work on it if you say, in your heart or in public, "It's going badly, I hate it, I'm thinking of quitting." It won't even be hurt if you do quit.
  
• Academic research is this intense emotional roller coaster, where when it's going well you feel like you can fly, but most of the time is spent hitting your head against a brick wall with no guarantee that you're going anywhere. This makes a great many people mentally and physically ill. If you don't have the temperament for that it doesn't necessarily mean you're bad at the subject, it just means you need a different sort of work environment.
  
• You can decide you aren't cut out for academia and still do a perfectly good Phd
  
• You can be an inefficient worker who takes lots of time off and otherwise "bad" and still do a perfectly good Phd.
  
• Let go of any expectation of being the cleverest person in the room. Everyone doing a Phd is very clever, and you will be expected to work on the same level as academics who are just as clever and have been doing it much longer than you. Being a mediocre Phd student and the lest clever person in the room is still very clever (not that one should care about such things anyway. But chances are if you're doing a Phd you do, deep down)
  
• Taking time off to stop yourself having an emotional breakdown is an entirely valid and important use of your time. Not everyone can work at the same rate, figure out how much time you need to take off to work at an optimal level (whether it be afternoons playing video games, weekends with friends, or christmas holidays with family) and enjoy it without guilt or second thoughts.
  

Extra stuff I've thought of:

• There is no shame in quitting, or transferring to masters, or taking off a year, or going part time, or finishing your Phd but not continuing in academia. Doing a Phd is unlike anything else you've done before, and it's really hard to judge in advance whether or not it's something you want or are able to do (or do at this particular point in time in this particular way). It's not a test of character, it's just a really long essay.
  
• Phds make people sick. If you have some physical and/or psychological issue bringing you down, don't see it as a personal failing, get it seen to and take it into account when setting standards for yourself (see also: take off the time you need, there's no shame in changing goals)
  

And while I'm at it here's some practical information about the UWA Phd submission process.

Things I learnt from honours (which weren't biochemistry related) is really goo as well.

Comments

[capnoblivious.livejournal.com]

+1, unless I can, by virtue of experience, +more, in which case, +lots.

(I still feel my PhD was a "bad" PhD, because of all the laziness. The feeling of being lazy and not all that smart has never really left me.)

[mattsmodernlife.livejournal.com]

If part of your motivation in life up until now has been jumping through a set of hoops to prove how clever you are let it go.

May I quote you on that?

That's the single most important thing I learned from undergraduate study. And I'm just now starting to learn that it applies to everything else in life, too, with "clever" perhaps replaced by "valid," or another situationally-appropriate word.

[elaran.livejournal.com]

If part of your motivation in life up until now has been jumping through a set of hoops to prove how clever you are let it go.
it's a little hard to let that go but yeah, things i wish i'd known before starting uni. that said, given the person i was (or still am deep down) i don't think it would have made any difference anyway.

[evil-megz.livejournal.com]

I'm going to take the liberty of replacing each instance of "Phd" with "honours" for my own sake.

And yeah... daddy thought I should do honours because with a bachelor's degree I've shown I'm "better" than 90% of the population, and with an honours degree I'd show I'm "better" than 97% of the population.
How about me not needing to show how much "better" I am, and instead using my "better"ness to do things that make me feel "better"er.

[joee-girl.livejournal.com]

Thank you so very much for posting this. I've been bursting into tears thinking about my PhD and it has finally occurred to me that *this is not normal and I need a break*

[kadeton.livejournal.com]

I read an interesting developmental psychology paper a while ago (might see if I can dig up the link later) about the hoop-jumping-cleverness motivation. The gist was that according to how children are praised, they become either experience-focused or recognition-focused. This mostly relates to how they tackle problems: the first sees the problem as an opportunity to learn, and the second as an opportunity to demonstrate their natural talent.

For simple problems, both perform roughly the same. For extended, difficult and involved problems, however, they diverge: with greater opportunity to expand their skillset, the experience-focused person will persevere until the problem is solved to their satisfaction, and therefore gain a greater reward in meeting stiffer challenges. The recognition-focused person will quickly get to a point where the reward (the admiration of others) is no longer commensurate with the effort of solving the problem. This leads them to seek out easier challenges and demotivates them from pursuing larger goals.

Unfortunately, the education systems currently in place everywhere are geared to strongly influence people, particularly naturally clever people, toward a recognition-focused mindset. Such people might cruise through school or even an undergraduate degree without having to resort to anything other than raw talent, but eventually they will encounter big, important problems that require genuine effort and perseverance, Einstein's "99% perspiration". Then they are fucked.

Only tangentially related to your post, but I thought it was interesting and rather concerning, both on a personal and societal scale.

[mynxii.livejournal.com]

I shall keep this in mind for my process of study, whatever form it takes :)

[triestine.livejournal.com]

Printed and bookmarked. ♥

[stableglynn.livejournal.com]

Love it. Good advice that I'm going to read again. Ta Dr Sqbr!

[nixwilliams.livejournal.com]

could i please re-post this to my blog (with a link and credit, of course)?