How to Get Your PhD : A Handbook for

the Journey 1st Edition Gavin Brown

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H OW TO G ET YO UR P HD
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gavin brown

how to get
YOUR P HD
A Han db o ok
f or t h e Jour n e y

1
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1
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For Moonlight.
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Preface

Wow, doing a PhD is hard, isn’t it? I assume you’re here because
you agree, and are finding it tough. I hope I can help. At the time
of writing, I’ve supervised seventeen PhDs, and been an examiner
for more than twenty-­five others, across the UK, the USA, and
Europe. Several of my students have won local, national, and
international prizes for their work—but, just like you, they still
found the PhD process very tough. This book contains all the use-
ful tips and tricks that I’ve collected over the years. I say these
things to my own students, and I had them said to me. Here’s the
first thing they get bored of hearing me say:
If PhDs were easy, everybody would have one.
But they’re not. So, they don’t.
Moral: PhDs are not meant to be easy. So, not everybody has
one. This seems obvious, but it’s difficult to appreciate. I repeat,
PhDs are meant to be hard—they are the pinnacle of formal
­education—if it were easy to get a PhD. you’d probably be disap-
pointed. If you’re finding it tough, please don’t think that’s neces-
sarily because of a lack of intellectual capacity. A PhD stretches you
to your limits—not just intellectually, but also emotionally. This
guide is meant to make you aware of some of the challenges
ahead. It’s not going to prevent them—there’s no magic formula—
but it might make some less painful when you meet them. Enjoy.
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Acknowledgements

Thanks firstly go to all my students, past and present, from whom

I have learnt so much over the years. Thanks to all of the proof-
readers of this book, who have contributed in their own ways:
Suzanne Embury, for detailed feedback and ideas in the early
stages; Jeremy Wyatt, for early thoughts on content; Vikki Burns,
for broadening my mind; John Woodward, for inspiration on
structure and form; Ainur Begalinova, for insightful views on
the challenges, and feedback throughout; Jacopo De Berardinis
and Zbigniew Koziel, for thoughts on the experience; Danny
Wood, for thoughts on solving hard problems and future careers;
Adam Pocock, for inspiration on industrial research careers;
Karon, Ruth, and Radina, for numerous colour printings of
drafts; and my wonderful Mum, for proofreading this book, and
my own thesis, and making it all possible.
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Contents

About the Editor xiii

Part I | How To Get Your PhD 1

1. What is a PhD? 3
2. Things you need to know 7
3. Things that will happen 19
4. How to find your new idea 33
5. How to work with a supervisor 47
6. Work on yourself 61
7. How to read 73
8. How to write 83
9. How to give presentations 99
10. What happens in a viva? 111
11. Your post-­PhD life 121
12. Skills you will have gained 135

Part 2 | Top Tips from Leading Minds 143

i. Choosing a career in science 147
Professor Dame Nancy Rothwell, DBE, FRS
ii. Becoming a reflective professional 153
Professor Victoria Burns
iii. Doing your PhD as part of a team 161
Professor Steve Furber, CBE, FRS, FREng
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xii Contents

iv. Saying yes to opportunity—and no 167

Dr Lucy Kissick
v. The rewards of risk in research 177
Professor Hiranya Peiris
vi. Top writing tips 187
Professor Melanie Leng, MBE
vii. Mistakes your supervisor will make 193
Professor Jeremy Wyatt
viii. A PhD in statistics and data science  201
Professor David J. Hand, OBE, FBA, MMC
ix. Building a strong support network 209
Dr Carolyn Virca
x. Inventing ourselves: Responsibility and diversity
in research 215
Dr Shakir Mohamed
xi. Public engagement in research  223
Dr Jonny Brooks-­Bartlett
xii. Your career is up to you  233
Dr Jennifer Polk

A final thought 241

Further reading 243
Index 247
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About the Editor

Gavin Brown is Professor of Machine Learning and Director

of Research for the Department of Computer Science at The
University of Manchester, UK. He obtained his PhD in 2004 from
The University of Birmingham, winning the British Computer
Society Distinguished Dissertation Award, which is given annually for
the most outstanding UK thesis in computer science. In 2005 he
joined Manchester, and since then has built a team working on
machine learning and data science, contributing both fundamen-
tal and applied research. His students have won awards for their
own research, including five best thesis prizes, and three best
paper awards at international conferences. In his spare time, he
enjoys competitive outdoor swimming, and considers himself a
reasonably good chef.
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how to get
YO U R P H D
part 2 contributors

1 2 3

4 5 6 7

8 9 10

11 12

1. P rofessor Dame Nancy Rothwell 7. Professor Jeremy Wyatt

dbe, frs 8. Professor David J. Hand
2. Professor Victoria Burns OBE FBA MMC

3. P rofessor Steve Furber 9. Dr Carolyn Virca

CBE FRS FREng 10. Dr Shakir Mohamed
4. Dr Lucy Kissick 11. Dr Jonny Brooks-Bartlett
5. Professor Hiranya Peiris 12. Dr Jennifer Polk
6. Professor Melanie Leng MBE
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part 1

H o w To G e t
Your PhD
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1
What is a PhD?

A PhD is a training programme where you learn skills for the pro-
fessional practice of ‘research’. This seems almost trivial to state,
but it’s incredibly difficult to appreciate the depth of this state-
ment, unless you’ve already done a PhD. It’s not a training pro-
gramme in the sense that there is a predefined set of steps and
achievements that everyone has to do. It’s exactly the opposite,
really. It’s more of a journey, where your training means travel-
ling to unknown intellectual lands, encountering the inherent
uncertainty, and developing the skills to cope with that. And
every person’s journey is slightly different.
This concept of training in research is hard to understand for most
people. This is because the word research is overused in modern
society, and most people use it inaccurately. People say they have
‘done some research’ . . . when in reality they have googled for 30 min-
utes, or read a couple of books. The professional practice of
research involves so much more than that. The profession of
research is just as much a valid profession as being a lawyer, an
accountant, or a software engineer, each of which take years to
train for. Research involves going into the unknown, and being
comfortable there—off the syllabus, being creative and system-
atic at the same time, putting your heart and soul into a new idea
and accepting critical feedback. That’s difficult—not everyone
can do it, and not everyone enjoys it.
So, don’t do a PhD if you just want another qualification for
your CV, or a higher paying job. You’ll hate it. Do a PhD only if
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4 How To Get Your PhD

you think the subject is amazing, the most fascinating thing

ever. You will spend three to four years studying one subject.
That’s a long time, so you’ve got to enjoy what you do.

But what is it, really?

Every PhD is different, so it’s impossible for me to know what your
PhD will be like. So, I’ll answer this question in terms of what
you’ll be able to do after your PhD.
I assume you have completed (or are about to complete) a first
degree, and have some good grades. This shows you can learn
advanced topics, and solve challenging problems, applying the
methods you studied. If I gave you a new technical challenge in
that area, I bet you could look it up, find good textbooks, and
learn it. You’d quickly be able to apply the new methods, and do
something that would be useful to society. However, if I gave that
same problem to someone who has completed a PhD, they could
do more. Someone who has completed a PhD has trained to be a
professional researcher. They would be able to solve that problem, but
also be able to think and organise their thoughts in ways that
other people find amazing. With that same topic, they would be
able to organise and structure the literature they find, and sys-
tematically identify cases where the existing methods simply
don’t work. They could tell me who are the world’s top experts in
the area, what they think, where they disagree on what is and is
not possible—in general, what the limits of human know­ledge
are, for this challenge. They could then propose a strategy to
go extend this knowledge—designing new methods that are
­simply not in any textbook on Earth. A professional researcher
writes the textbooks, as well as reading them. Learning how to
do all that is tough, and, as you’ll read in this book, it can be
uncomfortable at times. But remember, nobody ever got
stronger by staying in their comfort zone.
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What is a PhD? 5

The whole truth: good and bad

I will be absolutely honest throughout this book, not hiding any
aspect of what it’s like to do a PhD. As a result, you’ll understand
that there are a lot of quite ‘negative’ elements to the PhD experi-
ence, for example, the traumatic and often unfair nature of aca-
demic peer review, or that at some point you’ll likely feel really
depressed and think about quitting. I want to emphasise, even
though these negative elements will be tough to experience,
there are many, many positive elements to balance against them.
You will grow and, when you come out the other side, you will
be stronger than when you went in.
Doing a PhD was the right step for me. It helped me grow.
I learnt so much about myself, and I achieved things I’m very
proud of—not just in my research, but also in the wider sphere of
my experience as a person. I hope you will have a similar feeling
after your PhD.
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2
Things you need to know

A PhD is the pinnacle of formal education, so few people ever

have the experience. As such, even fewer can reliably tell you
what you need to know before you begin.

Success in a PhD is not just about being smart

So, you got yourself a first-­class degree with 90% on your exams.
Big whoop. Woohoo. Yay. Now, it doesn’t matter. You are now
on the same level as someone else who got a much lower grade
that morning. This is a common myth—that being intelligent
is all you need to get a PhD. I met so many people during my
PhD (and afterwards) who were blazingly smart, much smarter
than I am. Yet, I still got my PhD, and I have a successful career
in research. Why? Because being smart is not the only thing
you need.
Listen carefully. A PhD is not so much an intelligence test but a
test of your endurance and adaptability, along with your creativity and
ability to be systematic in the face of chaos. The people who get a
PhD either have, or develop, a strong resilience to pressure and
criticism, and learn to organise large bodies of complex material
into intelligible nuggets of information. They have to survive
when they are at the very limits of their knowledge, and beyond.
They send their very best ideas out into the world, watch them
get torn to shreds and still bounce back to figure out how to fix
them. If you’re not at your limits, you’re not doing research. Doing
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8 How To Get Your PhD

a PhD is about knowing that you know very little about what’s
round the corner, while still being productive.

Doing a PhD is nothing like doing

an undergraduate or an MSc
The very nature of a PhD is nothing like what you’ve experienced
so far. In your undergraduate or master’s degree, there was a neat
syllabus laid out for you. But in a PhD . . . there is no syllabus.
There is no list of things you need to learn in order to succeed.
There is no lecture–coursework–exam cycle that you’re used
to. There are few deadlines apart from those that are self-­imposed.
The feedback is much more sporadic and harsh. No one will hand
you a textbook, and tell you ‘learn this and you’ll get a PhD’. Why?
Because there is no textbook for what you have to do. And yet,
you still have to do it. Most people are very confused, and intimi-
dated, the first time they encounter this type of uncertainty in a
professional role. The emotional challenge of not knowing exactly
what to do with their day of study is tough. Some people do well
when the syllabus is provided, and clear goals set. But, once they
get to the unknown nature of a PhD, they are challenged as
they’ve never been before. So, if you think the PhD will be just
‘more study’, think again. It’s more study, but not as you know it.
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Things you need to know 9

Doing a PhD in three to four years

is a full-­time job
By end of the first year of your PhD, if you are not working eight
hours a day, five days a week (i.e. a normal full-­time job), then
you’re probably not putting in enough effort. If you’ve only just
graduated an undergraduate degree, this is something you’ll have
to work on. Concentrating for a full eight hours a day is exhaust-
ing, so build up to it slowly. But this is a stage that you have to
reach. I’ve seen students who treat PhDs like undergrad time,
working four hours per day—needless to say, they did not suc-
ceed as well as others who put in more time. However, the essential
caveat here is, working LONGER hours is not always the solution.
Sometimes, you have to work SMARTER, not HARDER. This is
because research is often in your head, not on paper. I often think
most creatively and make progress when I’m walking around the
campus, going to get a coffee, and so on. So, it’s full time, but not
a full-­time office job.

There are many different types of PhD training

Different academic fields have different expectations of what a
PhD should deliver. In some fields, it’s common to have large
(expensive) apparatus, and multiperson teams, trying to solve big
challenges such as measuring the properties of sub-­atomic par­
ticles, or understanding the composition of rocks from the planet
Mars. In these fields, PhD students are usually a small component
of a large intellectual endeavour, working to achieve more as a
team. These PhD students train for many years to learn how to
use the machines, or how to deploy a particular experimental
technique, or how to collect and analyse one part of the data in one
part of the project. This is often mapped out for before the PhD
even begins. This commonly occurs in physics or biology but, in
general, it happens in many of the natural sciences.
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10 How To Get Your PhD

In other fields, projects do not require large equipment and might

be more individual. The challenges are to create and analyse
novel artefacts or processes that have not been created/analysed
before. This might be developing new physical artefacts, or new
mathematical/algorithmic artefacts. These students typically
spend their time exploring large amounts of literature to find a
‘gap’ where they can contribute. This type of project t­ypically
happens in Engineering, Computer Science, and Mathematics.

Photo by Michael Longmire on Unsplash

But . . . this ‘large vs small’ project distinction is not a hard con-

straint of the field. In certain areas of Engineering, there are large
multiperson projects involving expensive equipment. And, in
some areas of Physics, there are very individualised projects where
a student has to find their niche. And, in all fields, there can be
projects that are reliant on certain resources—perhaps collection
of data, or waiting for a turn to use equipment. These constraints
change the nature of the PhD, and your experience.
Finally, you may also be surprised to hear that PhD training
also differs between countries. Yes, I said that. In the UK, a PhD
is three to four years long, where (most of the time) the only for-
mal examination is the face-­to-­face ‘viva’ at the end (see chapter 10).
In the USA, PhDs take, on average, six years to complete—this
involves taught components and a series of qualifying exams
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Things you need to know 11

that need to be passed before the student can proceed to the

­thesis stage.
The takeaway message for all of this is that the exact nature of
your PhD training will depend on the nuances of your field, and
on your university environment. As such, even within your own
department, your PhD training experience will be unique. So,
there’s really no point in comparing your progress to that of
other students. Which brings me to my next point. . . .

There are people who are much smarter than you

In the course of the PhD, you will meet people who are seemingly
superhuman. You might meet them at conferences, or they
might be sat next to you in the office. They will solve problems
faster than you, they will perform intellectual feats you cannot
imagine and, most of all, they will seem to generate ideas and
papers as if they were the offspring of Albert Einstein and Marie
Curie. But that’s ok. You are not competing with them to get
your PhD—there is not a fixed number of PhDs in the world, so the
fact that such people exist does not mean you won’t get a PhD.
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12 How To Get Your PhD

You have to abandon the idea

of instant gratification
When you’re an undergraduate, you do your exams, and get a
numerical grade for it, maybe a couple of weeks later. As a PhD
student, it’s totally different, and you have to adjust. From the
day you submit a paper for publication, it can take six to twelve
months to get feedback in the first round of reviews, and then
might easily take more than a year to finally see it accepted. Given
your PhD is only three to four years, this is quite a long time to
wait. The quality of feedback can vary, too. Maybe the paper gets
rejected, and the review commentary is only a few lines—they
somehow missed the brilliance of your new idea. Why, oh why
did they not get it?! The answer? Well, one answer is . . . it’s
highly likely (sorry to tell you) that you have not written it
clearly enough. Try again.
In research, the time between coming up with your brilliant new
idea, and someone acknowledging it, can easily be twelve to e­ ighteen
months, or sometimes many years. This long feedback cycle is
something intrinsic to research, and you have to get used to it. One
way to cope is to actively seek out informal feedback oppor-
tunities, like volunteering to give talks at other universities or
departments, or attending conferences and discussing your ideas.

Luck plays a significant role in research success

Some of the greatest scientific discoveries in history might not
have happened when they did, if not for events due to chance. It’s
painful to admit, but luck really does play a significant role in the
big research successes. If you’re there at the right time to make
the observation, or you meet the right person to support you, or
you try just the right configuration of your experiments, then
you might have a very big success. To be clear, I’m not saying luck
plays a big role in whether you get your PhD—that’s more down to
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Things you need to know 13

hard work and the right attitude, as will be explained throughout

this book. I’m just talking about the outliers, the big research suc-
cesses that stand out from the crowd. So—those academic super-
stars in your field? Perhaps the only difference between you and
them might be a little luck. . . .

Your supervisor is not your teacher

Your supervisor is not a ‘teacher’ in the same sense as those you’ve
had before. Instead, think of them as a guide—if you’re lucky, a
mentor—while you undergo your own training in research. A lot
of supervisors consider a PhD to be an ‘apprenticeship’, in that
you sit alongside an experienced researcher, watching them in
order to learn. If all of that is still not clear, think of research train-
ing just as you would training for a sports event. Most of the time,
it’s about discipline and training yourself, getting tips from other
athletes. Your coach (i.e. your supervisor) might only meet you
once a week—the rest of the week is your responsibility.

Your supervisor doesn’t know

everything—and that’s ok
At the start of the PhD, it may seem that your supervisor knows
everything about your subject, and you can’t possibly imagine doing
all the things they can do. Then, after a while, you will notice
that, on your specific topic, you know more, and you can do
things they cannot. Some students start to resent their super­
visor when they realise this and see that their supervisor doesn’t
know all the technical details—please, try to resist this. It’s not your
supervisor’s responsibility to know more than you. It’s their responsibility to
challenge you, to encourage you to think in new ways. That can
come from being forced to explain yourself to someone who
doesn’t know all the technical nuances that you know but is still
a well-­educated person. To be honest, if you don’t end up knowing
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14 How To Get Your PhD

more than your supervisor about your particular (very specific)

topic, you should perhaps be a little concerned. Every student
should, at some point, become the master of their own thesis.

Uncertainty stress vs. deadline stress

There are several types of stress in the average person’s working
day. It’s useful to understand this, to know what type of person
you are—most people cope well with some types but not so well
with others. The types of stress relevant to a PhD are what I call
deadline stress, and uncertainty stress.
Deadline stress is by far the most common type, one that
every­one knows. It’s when your boss is leaning on you, giving you
tasks and overwhelming you with stuff. This is common in office
environments and other very hierarchical organisations, when
you’re often not sure why you’re doing this task but you’re told
‘do it’ and that other people are relying on you. That’s a lot of
pressure, for sure.
Uncertainty stress is kind of the opposite. It’s when nobody
comes to give you tasks. If nobody comes to tell you ‘do this’ but
you are still expected to do something worthwhile, it’s unsettling.
This is common in people who are self-­employed. Nobody tells
them ‘do this and you’ll get paid’. Not knowing why you should
get out of bed in the morning is tough.
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Things you need to know 15

Doing a PhD involves much more uncertainty stress than deadline

stress. It’s stressful when you have a thesis submission date of
three to four years away, and all you’re told is ‘do some research’,
but you don’t know how. It’s stressful when you submit your first
paper, wait several months, and get a rejection, with little under-
standing of why. Sure, you’ll have some deadline stresses, like
paper submissions or mid-­year PhD reports, but, for the vast
majority of the time, it’s the uncertainty one. Unfortunately,
there’s no sure-­fire way to deal with uncertainty stress. It’s the
nature of the job. The only thing I’ve found that helps is to
shorten your time horizon. Stop thinking about the thesis
submission three to four years away, and focus on goals just three
to four days or weeks away. Give yourself short-­term achievable
goals, and you’ll feel better. An important element of this is to
keep track of your achievements, which can be done with a
daily research logbook. See chapter 6, the section on reflective
diaries, if you’re not yet convinced.

Most of the visible achievement comes

in the final twelve months
Many PhD students follow a common pattern—not everyone,
I should add—but you might find this happens with you:
You’ll spend much of the first year feeling completely
lost, wallowing in literature and getting used to the ter­min­
ology and technical nuances in the field you’ve chosen. If you’re
lucky, you’ll find, or be steered by your supervisor towards, a
smallish problem that you can solve, after which you’ll have
some degree of confidence. You might even get a small workshop
paper written up and submitted somewhere. But it will probably
still feel like there is a large mountain to climb, and here you
are . . . still looking for your climbing boots and ice pick.
During the second year, you’ll hopefully narrow down to a
specific area, and maybe test out some of your skills and knowledge
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16 How To Get Your PhD

on a nice problem. But you’ll likely still feel like you’re in the
dark—like you’re not really sure whether you’re moving for-
ward or not. In the second part of this book, you’ll find a lovely
contribution chapter about taking risks in your research, written
by Professor Hiranya Peiris. She says:
when you are at the frontier, you are always staring the unknown in the face, and
every step forward can feel like a better quantification of how much you don’t know,
rather than being internalised as progress.
I could not have phrased it better myself. When you are at the
frontier of your field, every day just feels like you know more
about what you don’t know—but that is normal, and how science
works as a profession, not something to be scared by.
Sometime during the third year is where the puzzle pieces
start to slowly fall into place.1 This is when you’ll feel more confi-
dent, knowing that your ideas actually have some merit. And so, in
this final twelve months or so, you’ll accelerate, and realise there
are many ideas/papers you could pursue, and you finally have the
skills to address them. So, most of the visible achievement, the
material that makes it into the thesis, usually comes in the final
twelve months. However, an important thing to remember is the
invisible achievement, by which I mean the skills that you have
been building for the first two years—how to use a particular
technique, or how to understand certain ideas. These skills are
necessary before you can publish. It takes time. Have patience.

1
I’m assuming the standard three-­year UK PhD, where we have three years
of research and then an additional one year, maximum, to write up the thesis.
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3
Things that will happen

Depending on when you’re reading this (before your PhD, at

the start, midway, or towards the end), you will recognise one
or more of the following things. I guess that most people reading
this will already be in the PhD process, and so should simply take
these as reassurance that it’s all ok, and it’s normal to experience
this stuff.

You will feel complete joy

I am being as truthful as I can with this book. PhDs are challenging
in lots of ways, but they are also immensely rewarding when you
hit the highs. One day, you will wake up having slept on some
problem you were trying to solve, and somehow the solution will
present itself to you, perhaps over breakfast, in the shower, or on
the walk to work. You will run into the lab, keen to try out your
latest idea, and excitedly tell people about it. And it will work,
exactly as you hoped. So, remember those days. Enjoy the suc-
cess. Whatever it is, I’m sure you have achieved a Big Thing, of
which you should be very proud.
 OUP CORRECTED PROOF – FINAL, 20/01/21, SPi

20 How To Get Your PhD

You will feel immensely inadequate and stupid

I’m a full professor of computer science, and I regularly feel stupid and
uneducated. It seems my colleagues (and my students) are so much
smarter, and more hard-­working, than I am. Even though I’ve had
some (pretty great) successes, I feel quite often that I’m burnt out,
like I’ve published my last good paper, and I have no more good
ideas left. In effect, I feel like I’m an imposter in my role. I feel like
that less often nowadays but, during my PhD, it was most days. This
is normal. It’s so normal, in fact, that there’s a recognised condition,
imposter syndrome. Seriously, look it up—there are lots of
resources. Let me make something else clear: this feeling is not
unique to doing a PhD. This is what happens in research, no matter
what stage you’re at, and indeed it’s what happens in life, no matter
what career you’re in. Everyone from Richard Feynman to Michelle
Obama feels or has felt this at some time. So yes, you, and I, and the
professor down the c­ orridor (even if she doesn’t admit it), are going
to encounter situations where we’re lost, and feel quite inadequate
for the challenge. The very nature of research is that you are going
off-­the-­syllabus, away from where people know what they’re
doing, and into your own specialist area. The first step to dealing
with imposter syndrome is to remember this—that you do have

Imposter syndrome Reality

What I think other

people know

What I know
What I know

What other
people know
 OUP CORRECTED PROOF – FINAL, 20/01/21, SPi

Things that will happen 21

a specialist area—and what you think when you are feeling down
might not be reality. . . .
In chapter 6, you’ll find some more thoughts on dealing with
imposter syndrome, and the various mental health challenges that
come with being a researcher. 1 Overall, try to remember: if you’re
not feeling insecure, you’re probably not trying hard enough.
Doing research is all about pushing boundaries. So, by definition,
that means you are right at the edge of your abilities, and should
expect to feel a little uncomfortable.

You will ride the rollercoaster

You will go up, you will come down, and you will come up again.
This will happen. Welcome to the PhD motivational rollercoaster.

You’ll start out on a massive high. You’ve made it! PhD student.
Well done. Your parents are so proud. You’re doing an exciting thing,
and you can’t wait to get going. You’ll probably find the whole of
the first year will be spent lost in the literature, intimidated by the

1 There are more, e.g. Kevin Whipps, ‘20 Ways to Combat Impostor Syndrome
Every Day’, Creative Market Blog (26 Jun. 2020), http://creativemarket.com/
blog/combat-­impostor-­syndrome, accessed 21 Oct. 2020.
 OUP CORRECTED PROOF – FINAL, 20/01/21, SPi

22 How To Get Your PhD

gaping chasm of PhD time ahead of you, yet somehow feeling

it’s already almost over. You’ll understand a few things, and get
a few ‘wins’ in whatever technical area you are in. But, at some
point, an idea will just flop. Or someone will show you how
your idea is flawed, or you’ve misunderstood something critical.
And you’ll come crashing down. It will feel terrible. And, at
that point, you will think you are the only person in the world
experiencing this . . . that your particular circumstances make
this unique. Sorry to disappoint you . . . but this happens to
everyone.
But then, a few weeks later, you’ll feel the highs again. This is
normal, and it will continue for most (if not all) of the PhD. The
worst part is probably the middle of the second year. This is
mainly because you realise quite how much you don’t know. If
you’re lucky, you’ll have written a paper, and submitted it. If
you’re very lucky, it might be accepted. Or not. One way or the
other, you’re going wayyyyy up, or waayyyyy down. It will feel
wonderful, or terrible. But then, a few months later, things will
even out, and you’ll be back to the usual grind.
The ups and downs might be triggered by anything. Maybe
immense frustration from your supervisor not liking your
idea, or not finding time to even read it. Maybe the experiment
you did just didn’t do what you expected. Maybe the student
on the desk next to you has a big success and you feel inadequate
sat next to them. Or maybe it’s just . . . Wednesday. Once again,
let me emphasise, this is completely normal. It’s how all PhDs
go. A critical thing to remember is that . . . when you go down,
you will come back up. So, be sure to remember the good
times.
Perhaps, when you have a high point, write down the date and
time, and why you are feeling so good. Then, when you feel low,
read it. The way I cope is just to say to myself ‘oh well, I’m not working
 OUP CORRECTED PROOF – FINAL, 20/01/21, SPi

Things that will happen 23

well today’. Why does that help? Because tomorrow I will be better.
Tomorrow, I will realise I can do this. Tomorrow, I will find the
right equation, or the right paper, or the right person to talk to.
And things will feel better. A little bit of blind optimism never
hurt anyone.

You will compare yourself to others

All PhD students worry that they’re not achieving enough. The
biggest cause of this is from comparing themselves to other students
around them. You’ll inevitably meet students who are in their
final year, or have completed their PhD who show you their
papers or thesis. Your immediate thought will be one of intimida-
tion, something like ‘Aaargghh! How will I ever make something like
that??!’. But you have to remember that’s what a PhD looks like at
the END, not where you are now.

So, what’s the solution? Well, how about you compare your-
self, with . . . you. This seems flippant, but it’s really important.
Consider the things you knew, and the way you were work-
ing . . . one month ago, or six months ago, or even one year ago.
Have you improved as a researcher? I think it’s highly likely that,
 OUP CORRECTED PROOF – FINAL, 20/01/21, SPi

24 How To Get Your PhD

if you compare the you now with the you of six months ago, you
will think ‘wow, I was so naïve then!’. Look back further, to maybe a
year ago, and you’ll see quite how much you’ve learnt. An easy
way to do this is to keep a research diary with dates. In this,
you write your opinions and thoughts on your work, maybe
write down what challenges you are currently having—but
always remember to write the date in the corner of the page.
Then, at any point, you can turn back a few pages, to one month
ago, six months ago, or more—and see quite how far you have
come. That should give reassurance that you are on a good
­trajectory.

You won’t know what to do with your day

When you’re into the unknown, and every direction looks the
same as every other, it’s quite paralysing. In this instance, stu-
dents often freeze, and panic, not knowing what they should do.
My advice is simply this: learn one thing every day. Doesn’t
matter what it is, just learn something. A good practice to offset
this is to always leave something fun to do in the morning—
don’t do the easy stuff just before you leave—save it for the
morning, and that way you’ll start your day with a success.

You will procrastinate

Oh yes. You will. I found SOOO many ways to procrastinate.
From solving puzzles entirely unrelated to my research, to firing
elastic bands at my officemate, to learning British Sign Language
and how to drive a bus, I did it. But, and I stress this here, that’s ok,
and I didn’t feel guilty for it. Sometimes your brain just needs down-
time. Productive procrastination is a term used by people (life
coaches, psychologists, etc.) to describe when you avoid doing
 OUP CORRECTED PROOF – FINAL, 20/01/21, SPi

Things that will happen 25

the task you really should do, by doing something else, but you
make sure that something else is ‘useful’ in some way. But I mean
something far more profound. I think you should feel free to just pro-
crastinate on totally pointless things, to let your brain rest, just
like an athlete does when they take time away from the gym to
let their muscles heal. Obviously, this has to be balanced
against the real work, but a bit of downtime is good for your
brain-­muscles, and you shouldn’t feel guilty. The physicist
Richard Feynman had hobbies like no scientist before him—
playing bongos, learning the steel drums, picking safe locks—all
of which were absolutely nothing to do with his research on
quantum mechanics, but it gave him the necessary downtime
to be ten times more productive the next day. And sometimes
inspiration really does come at the oddest of times—allowing
your brain to rest will push it into different contexts that may just
spark your big idea.

You will feel like you’ve wasted time

What I mean here is, you’ll have done a bunch of work, and then,
for some reason or another, have to abandon it—such that it
seems like it will never make its way into your thesis. This could
happen because you find someone has already done what you
wanted, or because it turns out to be infeasible, or other reasons.
But here’s the thing: YOU HAVE NOT WASTED TIME. You have
learnt lessons and developed skills that will be useful further down
the line, such that you will be able to move faster because of this
experience. And, ultimately, everything is contributing to the
development of the most important thing in your PhD process—
you. I know that sounds cheesy, but I really believe it to be true.
The most important thing to come out of most PhDs is the per-
son, with the transferable skills and knowledge they have amassed.
 OUP CORRECTED PROOF – FINAL, 20/01/21, SPi

26 How To Get Your PhD

You will feel guilty

Maybe you’ll have taken a day to yourself, to go out with friends,
or to see some family. You’ll suddenly hear this little voice . . . ‘You
should be working. Everyone else on a PhD is working—why aren’t you?’.
You’ll find it hard to shift this internal voice telling you that you
should work. For some reason, you feel a weight of responsibility:
maybe to your supervisor, your parents, or your partner.
Something inside you will think you owe it to these people to
work all the hours there are, because you’ve been given this
chance. It’s not true. A favourite quote of mine is the following:
You have no responsibility to live up to what other people think you ought to accom-
plish. I have no responsibility to be like they expect me to be. It’s their mistake, not
my failing.
This quote is due to Richard P. Feynman, a Nobel Prize-­winning
physicist. From the number of mentions in this book so far, you
may have figured out that Feynman is kind of a personal hero of
mine. He wrote a couple of books that show his approach to life
and work, which were quite inspirational to me. The quote is
from one of them,2 where he recounts a nice story about being
appointed to a prestigious position at Caltech and feeling guilty,
that he didn’t deserve the post. The lesson in the quote is that you
should only feel a responsibility to yourself. Don’t live life by some-
one else’s expectations. Set your own expectations and ambitions.

You will want more meetings with your supervisor

Doing a PhD is frustrating. To some extent, the supervisor is
there precisely to help you with that—to mentor you through
the difficult times. As such, at some point, you will likely feel

2 Richard P. Feynman and Ralph Leighton, “Surely You’re Joking, Mr. Feynman!
Adventures of a Curious Character”. (London: Vintage, 1992).
 OUP CORRECTED PROOF – FINAL, 20/01/21, SPi

Things that will happen 27

you want much more time with them. If you’re lucky, you will
get it. If your supervisor is very busy (usually a sign of a very
successful researcher), then it may be difficult to schedule,
and you’ll probably get annoyed with them. It’s important
to remember, they are not the ultimate solution to your
­frustration.

You will want fewer meetings with your supervisor

This happens to most people, and they start to avoid their
­supervisor. You might feel guilty for not doing enough work,
or simply think they can’t help you, since they haven’t read the
latest literature that you might have. I mentioned earlier that it is
not the supervisor’s responsibility to ‘know more stuff’ than you.
Their role is to challenge you, and to help you figure out a good
next step when nobody knows the answers (i.e., when you’re doing
research!). Another part of their role is to know more than you
on strategy, on the research process in general, and on how to con-
struct a coherent research story from your ideas/results. Your
supervisor will also, almost certainly, do things for you that you
are unaware of—behind the scenes—such as creating opportun­
ities for you, or resolving problems in your research strategy
that you are not yet experienced enough to see. If you doubt
what I’m saying here, think again—there is a reason why this
person has a successful research career—they know what
they’re doing.
 OUP CORRECTED PROOF – FINAL, 20/01/21, SPi

28 How To Get Your PhD

If you choose to withdraw from communicating, and not trust

your supervisor, you’ll miss out on all this other critical stuff.
Whatever your reasoning, be honest with your supervisor—and
the sooner you get past this stage, the better.

You will feel overwhelmed by the literature

Doing a literature review at the start of your PhD is like digging
into a pit of infinity. There seems to be a limitless supply of papers,
and things that you don’t know. This is all completely normal.
It’s not your fault. It’s just what research feels like when you start
in a new area. My recommended way to cope is to start by reading
survey articles for the field or, even better, some recent PhD theses
in this area. And, as a bonus of reading such survey documents,
you will often find a section called ‘Future Work’, or ‘Open
Questions for the Field’ . . . which might give you a good direction
to follow for your own research.

Photo by Sear Greyson on Unsplash

 OUP CORRECTED PROOF – FINAL, 20/01/21, SPi

Things that will happen 29

You will think it’s trivial—it’s not

At some point, you’ll have mastered the literature, and come
up with your own new idea. But then, you start to doubt
whether your Big Idea is really ‘Big’ at all. It seems soooo
­obvious—so simple! So, is this really a research contribution? It
seems trivial. But it’s really not—not at all. Why? Think about
it. You’re smart, and you’ve spent a long time studying this idea.
There is a good reason it took you so long to understand this
much—because it’s difficult; its genuinely a hard problem. It
only seems trivial to you, as you’ve had your head buried in it for
so long. Everyone else, in order to get the depth of understand-
ing you have, would have to spend the same months or years
studying, too. It’s not trivial.

You will have your work rejected

At some point, you will do a piece of work, and you will be
told . . . it’s not good enough. This might be a formal ‘rejection’ from a
publication venue, or an informal snub from a collaborator or
other academic who finds issue with your work. You have to
bounce back—get back on the intellectual horse and start riding
again. This is a normal part of the research life cycle. When you
see a piece of work by a famous research group, remember that
it’s the end product. Behind every successful experiment are ten
failed ones. Academic research careers do tend to involve more of
this than industrial research careers, but accepting criticism of your
work is inevitable if you want to push the boundaries of a field.

You will think about quitting

You will, at some point, think, ‘Is this really worth it?’. I certainly
did, several times. This is, again, normal. For most people, this is
 OUP CORRECTED PROOF – FINAL, 20/01/21, SPi

30 How To Get Your PhD

a thought that comes, and eventually (after a lot of hard work

and emotional turmoil) goes away. But for some people . . .
maybe you’re right. Maybe, in fact, this is not for you, and you
shouldn’t continue. This is a very individual decision, obviously,
so I cannot offer much generic advice. The answer to this ques-
tion has been considered in great detail, by many others.3 So, I’ll
say only this: how would you feel if the choice were taken
out of your hands? What if someone forced you to leave your
PhD, and you were not able to solve the research problem you
started on? Think hard before you answer.
If your answer is one of indifference, that you wouldn’t mind at
all, and you know you could exercise your skills better some-
where else . . . it might, in fact, be time to move on. And that’s
ok. You have many skills, and you are much more than a single
extra degree certificate. But, if you would feel a sense of disap-
pointment, that you really wanted to solve that problem,
then . . . stick with it. PhDs are tough. They are meant to be tough.
Carry on and you’ll make it through this stage.
So, assuming you’ve decided that completing the PhD is in fact
for you . . . let’s move onto the final thing that will happen. . . .

You will succeed

If you keep trying, you will have successes, both small and large.
At some point, you will break through the wall of rejections and
you’ll stop feeling the ups and downs so much. You will feel won-
derful. So, just keep going, and you will succeed.

3 Katie Langin, ‘It’s OK To Quit your Ph.D.’, Science (25 Jun 2019), http://
www.sciencemag.org/careers/2019/06/it-­s-­ok-­quit-­your-­phd, accessed 21 Oct.
2020.
Another random document with
no related content on Scribd:
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5 May
873 Edwards C S
B 4
7 May
970 Evans J M
M 9
11 May
979 Etler Valentine
D 9
4 June
1836 Emmert J C, S’t
- 14
2 June
55 Eddes James C
E 16
2 July
3761 Ellison Isaac, East
F 22
13 Aug
4785 Ellis C O Cav
C 5
13 Aug
5904 Ethridge Wm
B 16
7402 Elder P 2 Aug
 F 31
6 Sept
9075 Escue H, Cor Cav
- 17
4 Oct
10560 Elliott Wm
A 9
13 Oct
10985 Easton J Cav
B 16
13 Oct
11639 Ellington J “
B 30
2 April
353 Fairchilds Jesse
B 2
2 April
683 Fryer W L, S’t
H 23
8 April
697 Fagen Parker
I 23
- April
1145 Fannon G H StG
- 28
2 June
2408 Fisher C N
K 24
7 June
2506 Francisco R Cav
B 26
2 July
62 Friar John 64
H 9
- July
2835 Fox E StG
- 3
1 Aug
5820 Firestone —— Cav
M 11
8 Aug
5997 Frazier John
H 17
13 Aug
6299 Flowers W P, S’t C
B 20
2 Aug
7244 Franks W W
B 29
7782 Fields R G 1 Sept
- 4
7 Sept
8555 Finch A Cav
L 12
7 Oct
10133 Finch J B
B 1
8 Jan
12502 Franshier J D 65
K 21
4 July
3006 Fowler I 64
A 7
7 July
3733 Finch H Cav
I 21
2 April
578 Goddard John
B 16
2 June
1831 German P
C 11
6 June
2043 Gorman James
- 15
7 June
2571 Graham J D Cav
D 27
2 July
2891 Gooding James
D 4
11 Mar
3 Guild James
B 18
2 April
15 Graves Henry
E 11
2 June
59 Gray John W
I 29
6 July
3291 Gorman F
B 14
12 July
3357 Grays L
F 15
9238 Gamon I A Cav 7 Sept
 A 19
4 July
3620 Grundee Alex
D 20
7 July
3719 Grier J O, Cor
B 21
1 July
3887 Gilson C G
B 24
7 Aug
4531 Grevett S P Cav
C 1
9 Aug
5182 Given I A
I 9
7 Aug
5146 Griswell T J Cav
H 9
7 Aug
5374 Garrett M T “
L 11
7 Aug
5388 Green S G “
I 12
2 Aug
6376 Grims Wm
A 21
2 Aug
6400 Graves J C
E 21
8 Aug
6498 Grisson C
B 22
7 Aug
7221 Green J C
I 29
13 Sept
7454 Gunter R C, S’t
A 4
7 Sept
7908 Griswold W H Cav
K 5
7 Sept
8012 Gibbs J A “
L 6
2 Sept
8003 Griffin W A “
C 7
8046 Gill G W “ 1 Sept
L 16
1 Sept
9271 Gaff R “
C 19
13 Sept
9875 Gibson James “
- 27
14 Oct
10334 Gardner H “
C 4
7 Oct
10590 Garrison A, Cor
E 10
7 Oct
11063 Galbraith G W Cav
E 17
7 Oct
11632 Grier J
B 28
7 Nov
11925 Giles M C
I 8
4 Jan
12402 Ganon T Cav 65
I 6
7 Jan
12438 Gilbert Wm “
C 12
7 Jan
12464 Golden J H “
C 18
11 May
1000 Gray Thomas 64
E 19
2 April
433 Graves James
E 8
8 Mar
58 Hampton I A
D 16
11 Mar
85 Henniger Peter
I 21
2 Mar
163 Hoover Samuel
B 26
316 Huff Benjamin 2 April
 K 2
Huckleby 2 April
357
Thomas C 2
11 April
467 Hickson George
E 9
2 April
616 Hurd Wm
B 18
12 April
660 Head Wm Cav
B 21
2 April
682 Hixton John
F 23
Henderson 2 April
714
Robert B 24
7 April
805 Hayes J
E 29
2 May
844 Hughes E
I 2
2 May
958 Hickley Thomas
K 8
2 May
1036 Hickson Henry
I 12
2 May
1124 Hall John
B 15
1 May
1159 Heatherby John 64
C 19
2 May
1491 Hickson Daniel
F 31
1 June
1551 Hopkins A Art
A 2
2 June
1554 Hunt J
B 2
8 June
1766 Harrison Wm
I 9
1774 Hodges I M 2 June
F 9
4 June
1846 Harman A B
A 11
2 June
1925 Hendson J S
K 14
9 June
1950 Hickerman T Cav
B 14
2 June
2276 Hilton A F, S’t
H 20
13 June
2375 Hugely C W Cav
D 23
2 June
2491 Hawa E A
B 26
3 June
2642 Hale R H
F 29
2 July
2851 Hall B A
A 4
8 July
2949 Hudson J A Cav
F 9
13 July
3012 Haines J A
E 7
13 Aug
4855 Hall J J Cav
E 6
13 Aug
4836 Hermsen Wm “
B 6
7 Aug
4805 Haywood J G
I 5
3 July
3098 Hawkins S D
E 10
7 July
3121 Hodgen ——
K 10
3248 Hopson Thos Cav 3 July
 E 13
2 July
3421 Howard A
F 16
Heckman Wm, 2 July
3672
Cor G 20
6 July
3712 Henderson J R
B 21
9 July
3729 Hendlay J
A 21
7 July
3807 Hayes J C Cav
C 22
7 Aug
4535 Henry Wm
C 1
55 Aug
5278 Hudson John
I 11
2 Aug
5526 Harvey Morgan
F 11
Hensley James 3 Aug
5535
M E 13
2 Aug
5604 Hicks M
I 14
13 Aug
5607 Hasborough J H C
E 14
13 Aug
6393 Haines G Cav
A 21
2 Aug
6553 Hughes Wm
F 23
7 Aug
6581 Hibbrath M H Cav
I 27
5 Aug
6648 Harris A G
E 23
7 Aug
6681 Horton W C Cav
H 24