Survive the PhD!
Writing a PhD is a major professional milestone and requires tough decisions about one’s life, relationships, career goals, and personal commitments. A PhD tends to happen later in one’s life so it requires the candidate to have the motivation and resources (both financial and emotional) to do this. It is not easy. A PhD journey is a strain on one’s finances because it is generally poorly paid. One doesn’t do a PhD for the money (there is none) but rather for the curiosity to discover new areas and to contribute in a very small way to the excellent literature and theories that exist in this world. The PhD is your personal and professional pursuit of excellence. I have simplified my individual PhD journey into the three most important lessons that helped me successfully complete this. Perhaps these will work for future PhD candidates as well.
Stick to your guns
Your research idea is yours. Believe in yourself and in your idea. Over the years in your PhD, you will collect reams of data in your research area. Persevere with your data. As you sift through all the articles you read, all the theories you find, you will go through periods of self-doubt when you find out that most of the questions in your research area have already been answered. Stick with your data, wrestle with it, cajole it, play with it, and you will find a new perspective. The best advice I ever received was from an old professor who told me to persevere with my data and eventually I will find something. When you start developing your contribution be confident about it. If you are not convinced about your contribution, no one else will be. This is your research that you’ve worked on for several years. You learn to fine tune your results, to adjust your story and perhaps answer a different question than the one you started out with. This is what a PhD is about. As you uncover more and more, you discover a small pocket of uncharted waters. This is where you will make a difference. This is the gap you close. No one knows more about it than you do. Stick with it. Have faith in your results. Give yourself credit.
Select a drug
The PhD is a long, arduous, and lonely journey. It is also very frustrating and many times there is a feeling of desolation and hopelessness when you keep realising that your proposed contribution either doesn’t seem valid or good enough, or that it has been developed before. This happens many times during your PhD years, especially during the data analysis and theory development phases. It is during these times that one needs a distraction. A drug to set you free, to relax you. My drug was travelling. I travelled as much as I could, given the time and monetary resources that I had available. This took me away from my research, my data, and my hypotheses. But they were still always with me somewhere in my mind. It was during my travels that many moments of inspiration struck me and new perspectives of my research suddenly hit me. It is because of detaching yourself a little during your troublesome periods that your mind sometimes thinks of alternative views of your research. Choose your drug — it can be music, dance, sport, travel, or another activity that you can relax with. And do it often.
No question is interesting
This is unfortunately true. Every PhD student (and senior researcher as well) thinks that their research question is very interesting. It really isn’t. What is interesting is the story you tell and how you present your findings. It is very rare and very difficult to make a path-breaking contribution in a 4–5 years long PhD process. When you go to conferences and seminars, you receive feedback and criticism from fellow scholars, professors, and peers about your research. Often it is discouraging to hear that your research question is neither interesting nor helpful in the real world. Listen to all the criticism but use the bits that you think can help you develop your research. The audience is providing you feedback only from what you presented to them but only you know your work in minute detail. And when you listen to their presentations, you realise that their questions aren’t interesting either! It is about the story, the perspective, and the presentation.
So, go ahead. Do your PhD. Both the journey and the destination are beautiful and fulfilling!