What to Expect on a PhD...

What to expect on a PhD... Obviously this varies enormously and I will start with the obvious: You will be stressed, tired, frustrated, bla bla bla. What I have really found in my 20 or so months of doing a PhD is that it is a very unpredictable, nervewracking, boring, rewarding, lonely and confusing experience.

Unpredictable
It really is a rollercoaster. To start with this isn't necessarily immediately obvious because your days are quite structured, perhaps you are completing some kind of research skills course, going to research groups, talking a lot with other newbies. Your sup will probably be on call a lot here too. Then, this will gradually ease off as the work kicks in and all of a sudden you are Alone, freefalling. Freefalling is not good and a lot of people seem to get quite low anything from 6-9 months in, feel unable to cope with it, feel lonely, pressured and intimidated. This is very normal and I think part of the adjustment from structured taught courses to PhD. PhD learning is freewheeling all the time, it's just that you get used to it and find you can control it a bit more - even, hopefully, get to like it and be pleased with the independence, initiative and assertive nature it is helping you to develop.

Nervewracking
Of course doing a PhD is scary. It is intimidating and full of really brainy creatures who work so hard and wear sensible shoes. I am not, don't all the time, and never do. Doing a PhD is hard work, but so much of it is controlled by you and this can make hard work fun. (!) What is really scary about a PhD is how long it is, how unstructured it is, how few deadlines there are (none really after your transfer meeting), how you cannot control your brain and make it work all the time, how sometimes you swear you have no idea what your topic is on again... These silly, everyday issues are what makes a PhD hard. So much of a PhD is about slog, about writing, writing, writing. It is always brilliant when you get *that* idea, but when you have written about for the millionth time it loses its edge and becomes quite mundane! This is when it is boring.

Boring
Doing a PhD all on your todd can be insanely boring. This is hard to deal with and hard to motivate oneself through. But the feeling once you do and get those 800 words down in a flash! Yay!

Rewarding
Ah... the good bit. Doing a PhD can make one so puffed up with pleasure! It's so lovely when a supervisor is proud of your work, or when you sit and chat in a meeting for the first time like friends instead of teacher/student, or when you have a breakthrough, or when something you knew would work/was right, IS. Brilliant. Especially as you did it mostly yourself.

Lonely
Doing a PhD is definitely lonely. Not necessarily physically, but generally with your topic - you are doing this to be the world's foremost authority on your topic. This means no-one will know, or care about, it as much as you. Sometimes you want to talk and talk about your day's work, about your month's thoughts... Don't! You need to keep those friends.

Confusing
Lastly, not leastly, it is confusing. You can spend an entire month not writing a thing with the deadline looming. It is a nightmare and you will yourself to work. Work work! please brain we're running out of time! But no, you stare out of the window and give pet names to garden creatures (I have Terry the squirrel, Jeremy the cat*, Winnie and Fred the magpies). But then, you do work and it's all in time and fine and you realise you weren't being lazy but thinking. There is so much thinking in this malarky, and some times you can only think when you are switched off. This should be given more credit in PhDland I think. You will spend whole days reading notes you thought you knew innately, reading about how to write a chapter, reading PhD blogs for a hint or tip... this is not all necessarily procrastination but a different type of working. This also creates a PhD.

Lastly, it is something that is created by you, worked at by you and completed by you. What jonny bloggs is up to is of little concern, that they are on their fifth paper and travelling the world to conferences when you haven't got the guts up yet to apply to one conference means nothing. Work at your pace, achieve at your pace and enjoy it. It really doesn't matter what everyone else is doing too much. Obviously it is nice to keep up with one's peers but w are all different and progress at different speeds. Also we all have different priorities. I don't want to be an academic after so don't seek to publish a gazillion papers to present at conferences. I do want to network for when I have completed though, so I go to seminars. Slowly but surely that is - I didn't go to my first one until I had been here for a year, while two of my colleagues have taught at the uni, and presented at conferences within the first few months! I, on the other hand, am having my transfer meet earlier than them and am now a chapter down. Swings and roundabouts chaps, keep this in mind.

Enough for now. As always comments and other ideas are welcome. If you leave your name I will happily credit you.

J x

*Not her real name
PS. See also 'Four Pillars of a PhD' under the Good Info and Advice link below.