Are you about to start the journey of doing a PhD? Here are a few words of advice from Megan, a postgraduate ambassador at Swansea University.
As someone who is nearing to the fourth (and final!) year of EngD (professional doctorate in engineering), I feel that I am now very familiar with postgraduate life at Swansea University. I like to use positive affirmations during challenging times, so here are a few I hope will be useful when starting a PhD on any kind or topic.
1. Embrace the chaos
When you start the PhD journey, everything may feel like it's all over the place. It's a big step to start a project where you're responsible for everything from the first goal to the final sentence in the dissertation. Also, very often, it's not just the research that is on the list of things to do. Most doctoral students will have to take on teaching responsibilities, specialized training, publishing work in the form of articles, and/or presenting at meetings and conferences. Moreover, if you, like me, have moved from another university, it is a task in itself to find a place to go for resources, information, or equipment. It can feel chaotic to be in the middle of it all, but I've learned that there is a lot of room to grow if we embrace the chaos rather than fight it.
Remember, how many people do you know who start a new job and have individual responsibility for an entire project right away, as well as other responsibilities? So remember that when you're wondering why things feel too much! As time goes by, you'll become familiar with everything.
2. The only constant is change
On a similar theme, it is extremely rare to see a doctoral project that retains the same look from the beginning to the end of the research period. As a result of following a research path over many years, it’s inevitable that the boundaries of your research field will evolve, tools will break, or supervisors will move on to new positions (three times in my case!). During my doctoral period so far, I’ve worked with four academic supervisors (and counting...) in a row, and changed the title of my project entirely in view of the industry’s greatest need at the moment. No one is to blame for this, and in my opinion, it’s okay to look for the positive effects if things don’t turn out as expected.
For example, due to the transformation of my project’s title and direction at the end of the first year, I’ve spent time working with an academic from a completely different university. At first, it was natural for me to be nervous about adding another collaboration to the project on top of the uncertainty of changing plans, but now I have a great extra supervisor who challenges and supports my work and brings expertise and experience that I would be missing without it. I didn’t plan or anticipate having an ‘external’ supervisor, but I’m very grateful that it happened!
Flexibility and resilience are very desirable qualities in the workplace so I would recommend seeing the doctoral period as an opportunity to practise and master them.
3. Stay in your own lane
The academic world can be a very competitive and individualistic one where it’s easy to compare yourself to your peers in the same institution and beyond, especially when it comes time to attend conferences or submit an article to a reviewer for the first time (although, experienced academics feel this way after doing such things repeatedly!).
Nevertheless, as in all other aspects of life, everyone has something unique to offer. Since research is ngineer new ideas, processes, and interpretations, it’s a good thing that we all think, write, and present in different ways.
For example, I mainly work with computer ngineerin – I love maths and programming! But most of my colleagues work on the experimental side and math isn’t by far their favorite aspect of studying ngineering. At the beginning of my project, I felt insecure about the fact that I don’t have a tendency to spend hours in the lab and, instead, equations brought me inspiration. Now, I appreciate that I have an alternative perspective to offer on ngineeringg processes because of the different way I analyze and engage with the science, and similarly, I value the perspective of my different colleagues. A variety of ideas will yield the best ngineering solution (or argument or solution).
4. One step at a time
One of my colleagues’ response to the question of how the research is progressing is always: 'Small steps, every day'. I think this is great advice for a big challenge like a doctorate. If you think about the entire doctorate, the 3, or 4, or even 5 years in their entirety, the thousands of words that make up the dissertation, and so on, of course it feels like an almost impossible task. For me, it's much more effective to focus on the tasks at hand this month, this week, or just today.
For example, I am currently going through the peer review process as part of an academic article publication request. It's a long process and you have to be prepared for strong criticism but every time I create a new draft of the work, I focus only on the current version and how I can improve on it. By paying attention to the details of the small problems in this moment, I'm constantly stepping towards solving the big problem.
5. Climb every mountain
In the immortal words of the nuns of the film 'The Sound of Music' - climb every mountain!
Personally, despite all the challenges that come with a doctorate, I strongly believe that this is one of the greatest privileges of my life. You will be very unlikely to receive the opportunity again to learn, explore, and develop (both professionally and personally) in such an intense way (and often in completely unexpected ways, for example I created, developed, and delivered a Welsh-medium engineering outreach project under the auspices of the Royal College of Engineering during the first two years of my EngD).
I'm aware that a few things I've discussed may sound like a lot to cope with, in a way that makes it tempting not to do a PhD at all. I've felt the same many times. But now, I've climbed a number of the mountains in the PhD landscape and seen the benefit of looking at them as great opportunities for development, and if you come over them, who knows what's on the other side...