I did a PhD the hard way in the UK. What you need more than anything else is a driving desire to do some research and an idea of how that research and its completion will help bring benefits to the area of your interest and to the wider community and environment in general. This may of course mean finding a better career path.
It's probably easier to get into a PhD immediately after an undergraduate or Masters program but you can do it later in life when you may be sure that it is what you want to do. After realizing you want to do this, and mustering the interest, you need money, an institute of learning and a supervisor.
Money represents stability, and you can't do the PhD with ease if you are not stable. You need to eat, sleep, relax and be able to afford a rent/mortgage. You may have to rely on your friends, parents, college or institution, spouse or employer to support you one way or another.
Good PhDs always need a great deal more support than your supervisor, even if you have the money. More important than your supervisor, is the institute of learning you choose. The institute will represent your connections and these may be strongly associated with your supervisor. You may simply register with the institute to pursue your work elsewhere as I did – but wherever you work will mould, not just your PhD, but your career. A pleasant and supportive institute is best. After your PhD, this institute may represent a badge of honour.
A supervisor is not as crucial though it can be the difference between joy and grief in the process of your research. You'd be lucky to find a supportive supervisor, many just take the credit and do the minimum. You will ideally need many other academics to help you, to deal with various technical aspects you can't do yourself. You may need extra training as in statistics, molecular biology, experimental methods. On a PhD you should always be willing to be open to learn and apply new skills. Finally, you need to work very hard in quiet surroundings: privacy and room to do your work is vital. A library with the references you are after is ideal or if you are lucky, an office. These days the internet is essential. Communicating with helpful friends, colleagues and institutional affiliation in the widest sense of the word are vital.
If you don't have enough money, you could do your work on a Part time basis and work the rest of the time. Say three days of work and two days for research. University jobs are ideal as they create time in the long holidays for you to pursue work. They also offer internet access and other perks including quiet places with heating (or may be AC), a stimulating environment and theoretically, access 24/7, yes a PhD often demands burning the midnight oil, though you can sleep for part of the day.
The process of doing a PhD is typically divided into three phases: finding a project and reviewing the literature; doing the research including experiments or fact finding and writing up. If you choose an area that is obscure like a genus of fish that no one has heard of, or the life of some obscure writer, it will be easier in the sense that you will have little background material and will generate the research yourself. In other words, if you are in virgin territory, you don’t have to worry too much about keeping up with the latest findings or dong a huge amount of raking over past literature. You have more chances of being original and creative. The downside is that attracting funding may be a lot harder. If you go into an area that everyone’s already busy with like finding a cure for aids or cancer, you will be able to get funding (subject to more competition), but will have far more literature to keep up with. It will be harder to define what the most original aspect of your work is.
Typically, finding the topic you want to work on is the easy bit. It is when you get your teeth into it, that it becomes hard. Actually phase 1 and 2 are done together. Lots of people say that you should begin your write up while doing research. This is true but only up to a point. You don’t start by writing your theses, but by writing preliminary reports and abstracts of your work. These will yield the templates to do your final write up. Don’t confuse the templates for the final write up.
Writing up can be the hardest or the most pleasant stage of your work depending on your perspective. Anything from 3-6 drafts and redrafts may be needed. Here I’d like to digress by speaking about your most important tool, the laptop.
I went through three laptops during my work over eight years. The PC based laptops needed changing quite frequently under the circumstances. Then I got an Apple Macbook Pro and realized just how versatile it was. I could have Windows and Mac on the same machine running simultaneously. The Apple environment presents greater stability and ease with features like “spotlight” to find things with rapidity and screen capture, so you can generate images in a trice based on images you generate yourself or from the internet. There is a lot of free software available to make your life easier like “Seashore” a graphics package. There is no problem with Windows exclusive software as you can blend both worlds together. By the way, don’t forget to make backups of your project. Driving my writing using one of the best machines on the planet made everything a lot easier and more pleasant (and no, I’m not being paid for that plug – at least not yet).
Here’s another tool you may find useful. A USB powered flatbed scanner like a CanoScan Lide machine. You can take it to a library and scan documents as a PDF directly into your laptop. The flatbed machine can be transported easily along with your laptop to a library.
Once again I come back to people. You will need emergency funds and lots of help and assistance. Ask, ask and ask again. Be humble, go on your knees and be generous in your acknowledgments. Send people little cards, to say just how much you appreciate their help.
Feel free to be bold and creative in the layout of your theses with lots of sections (no need to number sections and subsections slavishly, I divided my theses into 5 “Parts” and further into “chapters”) and illustrations as may be needed. I was really helped along in the end by working in a library with friendly staff who go me all the references I was after. Most of my theses got together AFTER most of the work was done, given I had to revise and revise the original beyond the scope of what I thought. Being ambitious will cost you time – don’t overdo as you’d be lucky of more than 10 people are actually interested in reading your theses. What comes after is more important.
Here’s the usual good advice. When writing up, you write the introduction and abstract at the end to tally with your conclusions and discussion. Start with writing about the methods used and results before moving to discussions and conclusions. Finally, you can work back into your intro piece and blast your trumpet about just how unique your discoveries are.
In the end, you may be THE expert in your chosen field - don't be cowed, be confident. Be ready to share your research with the wider world by publishing.
A PhD may be the hardest thing you ever do. It may involve amazing journeys to exotic places. Be prepared to eat frugally and live on a budget. There is no guarantee it will do your career any good although you may be able to make a greater social contribution than without your degree.
PhD programs differ from country to country. Books like “Saving planet Earth as a career” that I’ve reviewed here can help. Read one about “how to do a PhD” or similar, when you begin your PhD. Never underestimate the workload – take it in your stride. At least it sounds impressive to tell the people you know “I’m doing a PhD” – and enjoy the rare privileges of being a student (even if most of the time, you don’t even know if you will ever get it). It may actually be more frustrating after a PhD but by then, you will hopefully be someone else.
No comments:
Post a Comment