10 Tips To Ensure You Complete Your PhD
Posted by Steve Munroe | Under Life, Study Friday May 16, 2008
My PhD was one of the hardest but most rewarding things I have ever undertaken. There were many moments where I thought I’d never finish. It took a tremendous amount of support from those around me and some long hard looks at how I approached the way I worked. Looking back, there were definitely things I could have done to make my life easier. The following list is inspired by the things I did wrong, as well as a few I did right. For all those of you still going through the process, hang in there! You can finish and you can definitely do it in much better style than I did. If you manage to do just half of what’s on the list below you’re already well ahead of the game.
1. Know what you want to do before you start. Its amazing how much time you can spend searching around for a research topic. It took me over a year to decide what I wanted to focus on. If I had a clear idea before I started it would have saved me all of that time.
2. Once you know what you want to research, set yourself a target for a month per chapter. This sounds insane but it is possible. I knocked out three chapter from January to March in my last year. It wasn’t intentional - I had too! Time was running out and I needed content - fast! Of course by that time I had a good idea what I needed to do, so all the thinking time had already been done (see the above point), but once you’re at that position, you can very quickly get the core stuff down on paper. The rest of the time can be spent smartening it all up (granted, not an easy task).
3. Treat it like a job. Do a 9-5 (or even a 10-4) and stick with it. It’s very easy on a PhD to idle away large parts of the day, and end up working well into the night as deadlines approach. be more disciplined than this and get the work done in a methodical way with a regular routine.
4. Don’t wait on your supervisor. Finished a piece of work? Don’t wait until your supervisor reviews it. Work on the next one straight away if you can. Build your own schedule and try to stick to it.
5. Collaborate with others. Seek out others doing similar work. Collaborate with them on a piece of work and split the spoils (be sure its your ideas you are presenting though). Working with others will keep you motivated, and having other pairs of eyes equally interested in the output will ensure the work is of a good standard.
6. Keep your home life separate. Doing a PhD is stressful, not just for you but for your partner also. Try not to work at home. Do your work in the office and maintain a clear separation between home life and the research.
7. Befriend your supervisor. This person is the second most important person involved in your PhD (after yourself). Your supervisor’s experience in knowing what a PhD looks like is vital to your success - you can’t do it without them. Invite them around for dinner, go out for drinks with them, send them a birthday card, charm them and make a friend of them. You can’t underestimate the value of having your supervisor’s full support.
8. Spend scheduled time away from your research. A break will refresh you and enable you to come back with new ideas. To be able to do this you will have to be organised (see points 2, 3 and 4).
9. Use the best tools. Don’t try to write a 200 page thesis using MS Word! There are far better tools out there. Use something like LaTeX. It has an initial learning curve but the time it can save you over the course of your PhD can be amazing.
10. Stay healthy. It’s easy to fall into bad eating and physical habits. Ensure you eat well and stay fit. Take advantage of cheap membership at the Uni gym and try to excerise at least once a week. It will do wonders for your mental health in the difficult months to come.
