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Welcome to the University of Edinburgh. 4 years ago I was sitting where you are now. I can clearly remember how excited I was and how much I was looking forward to being a postgraduate student doing research in the field in which I am interested in. I am sure you all have your own motivations which bring you here to do a research degree. Maybe you have the same belief that I had four years ago: that anyone can get a PhD. Full Stop. Because I had seen so many people who had gotten a PhD. But I really wish that someone could have told me that there should be a comma at the end of that sentence rather than a full-stop. Because there are a lot of conditions applied to this statement. 2
First of all, I wish I could have been told that doing a PhD is not easy. I am saying this not to scare you, but to let you be aware of and prepare for difficulties. Because a lot of things can go wrong. For example, the materials which are fundamental to your research are no longer available. After months of optimisation, your experiments just don’t work. Or your supervisor can be very busy – you can’t talk about your problems as often as you want. Or you just couldn’t cope with long working hours or working on your own. All of these can happen. And they can happen repeatedly during your PhD. Take me for example, I was very stressed during my first year of my PhD. Because I did medicine for my Undergraduate, I had done absolutely no research before coming here. I even couldn’t tell the difference between 20mL pipette and the 100mL one. So although I was very much interested in research, I felt so frustrated when I was doing it. I didn’t know what papers to read, how to design experiments or troubleshoot. On top of that, I was new to Edinburgh. I didn’t have any friends here and none of my friends in China had done a PhD before. So they couldn't understand my situations or offer any help. So I felt like I was thrown into the middle of the ocean and I didn’t know which direction to go. So for months I couldn’t sleep very well because I could not stop thinking about felt I might fail at the end. I felt anxious all the time, 3
especially when I had to present at lab meetings or a meeting with my supervisor. At the end I kept asking myself ‘Why on earth did I choose to do a Phd ?” Thankfully though, there was a turning point in the story. Well, many of them. One of them was when I saw this cartoon. I suddenly realised that why I felt it was so difficult was because doing a PhD is indeed a big challenge. It requires a lot of effort before you can see the beneficial outcomes. So I shouldn’t have been feeling so bad when I was just at the beginning of digging out this big carrot. Also you should remember that you are definitely not the only person who feels this way. If you talk to PhD students in your Centre or even in a completely different field you’ll find that everyone has their own problems to solve and their own difficulties to overcome. So having a feeling that doing a PhD is not easy is absolutely normal! And more importantly…there is a lot of help available (next slide) 3
You’ve heard a lot about the support services that the University provides. And actually, there is a long list of them if you go online and look: http://www.ed.ac.uk/staff-students/students/student-services. In addition to these, your supervisors, post-docs in your group, administrators in your centre, or even other PhD students – all of them can be very helpful and give you advice. But one thing that I want to point out here is that asking for help is not the same as finding someone to complain to. Complaining can sometimes help us to relieve pressure but it is very time consuming and will not help you make any progress. The problems won’t disappear just by complaining. What you need is advice leading to solutions. So instead of complaining that “I don’t think my supervisor is giving me any direction. I should have chosen someone else” Try to ask the question like this: “How should I prepare the meeting with my supervisor so that I can let him/her know what problems I have and give me some advice?” Instead of complaining that “I have spent so much time on this experiment but it just doesn’t work.” Try to ask a question like this: “I’ve tried condition A, B, and C. What 4
else am I missing? What else should I try out?” So go ask for some constructive advice and help. Don’t feel shy or ashamed. I personally have been to the short sessions offered by the Counselling Service, which was very helpful! 4
Another point I want to make is that doing a PhD is not just about the Research question. When people ask me “What are some of the most valuable things you have gotten from your PhD” I think that there are 2 things. It’s not about the techniques I have learned or the positive findings that I discovered. These ARE important but not the MOST important. For me, the most valuable thing I got was the ability to learn and to solve problems independently. This enables me to learn new knowledge and accomplish various tasks, even in the fields in which I am not familiar. So when you are so focused on that specific research question, going into details and details, take one step back . Ask yourself, “If I were given a completely different research question, can I develop product to solve it?” After your PhD it’s very unlikely that you can do whatever projects you like. Instead, you will often be asked to do something that you are not familiar with. So equip yourself with the ability to learn new things . In addition, when you end up spending most of your time at work and your home has become a bed and breakfast, push yourself out of the lab and the library . Go to a public engagement event (photo on top left), join a EUSA Society (photo on 5
top right), run a marathon (middle photo), go to the Festival (bottom right) or even just simply explore this beautiful city (bottom left). Try something new. Seek more opportunities to develop skills, because through these experiences you will find out what you like, what you are passionate about, what you are good at, and what are the core values that you care about the most. For me, the second most valuable thing that I have discovered is about myself. I realised that I am very shy when meeting strangers. So I force myself to attend networking events or give a public talk, like today! I also realised that I am a very conservative person. So I keep reminding myself to take risks and challenges. So use your PhD to get to know yourself . Encourage yourself to step out of your comfort zone. You’ll find out that you can do a lot more than you think. 5
Last but not least, I want you to always keep this in mind: After all, it is YOUR PhD. This does not contradict what I have just said – to ask for help. What I mean is, after you’ve asked 10 people what you should do next, ask yourself “What do I think I should do next?” After you have gathered a lot of suggestions from different people ask yourself if you agree with all of them. Which advice should you take? If you keep asking yourself this you’ll gradually find that you start to discuss a question with others rather than just asking and listening. You start to have your own judgements and your own ideas. This is very important because the ultimate goal of doing a PhD is to become an independent researcher. So don’t just sit back and thing, “there will be someone who can help me out with this.” It is your responsibility to take the lead of your project. 6
At the end, I want to say that if you are prepared that at some point of your PhD it can be very challenging. And if you are determined to overcome all the difficulties through your own effort and with other’s help…comma, anyone can get a PhD. Full stop. Try to make the most of it! I wish you all the best with your studies. Thank you very much! 7
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Hello, I’m aware it’s been a very long morning. So I assure you that these are the distilled, very best tips that I can give you today. My name is Donald Slater, I am (as of this week) a 3 rd year PhD student. I can tell you that it goes very, very quickly. My research is in Glaciology. I’m specifically trying to work out how climate change will affect the Greenland ice sheet, shown in the background image here. So I’ve been asked to come here today to give you some hints or tips for your PhD and to say what I wish I knew when I started my PhD. Of course, I should say that I haven’t actually finished my PhD yet so it remains to be seen whether any of these tips actually work. But I think they might be quite useful to think about. It’s also very difficult to give one -size fits all advice to research students. Because no two research projects are the same. Some are very, very different. But there are a few things which I think apply regardless of your topic and these are what I would like to focus on today. So I have 2 serious topics to talk about today and 1 which is a bit more fun. 9
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