How to succeed in your PhD

Tips from a PhD graduate: how to do well

• Take Initiatives
• Find your way around obstacles
• Get along with your research group
• Know how the ’system’ works
• Get things done

These are common to success in industry and the professions.

Academia is a business and ‘PhD student is a job title.

Don’t expect micro-management

Be tenacious: develop a thick skin.

Do something every day to get you nearer to finishing your dissertation.

Be flexible: you are at the bottom of the hierarchy.

I have more of these bons mots scribbled on sheets. i will blog them when I find them – and credit the author!

Sessions

2 sessions yesterday, one to a group of Health Service Researchers at IOP, one to students as part of the Researcher Development Programme.

Total turn-out: 6 students – thats for both sessions.

I actually had something intesting to say. In one I had been asked to talk about about ‘big picture’ Career Managment issue, in the other I was trialling my new material on CV writing.

We never get large groups here in the summer term – even though with PhD’s there are no exams to distract. I have just read an article on the threats to face to face teaching in universities now – diminished contact time. We are trying to increase it and not really getting any where it seems.

In one session, 8 students had said they would come, in the CV workshop 5. So the other issue is students who commit to come and then do not. Ho-hum.

Postdoc talk

Had Professor Morris address a small group of PhD students last night.  He focused on some big picture issues about careers in Science – the knife edge between success and failure. For him the career scientist is always asking questions and that is what distinguishes the person who is going to like the career. The students quizzed Roger on whether an industrial career  was inferior (No), how did you know whether you were ‘good’, what could you do if you did not manage to publish any papers, what if your project was ’scooped’ by a publication – this had happened to one student in the room.

Roger gave a very personal account of his career and spoke in favour of ‘diversifying’ in the choice of postdocs. But my question was why did so few students turn up to such a fascinating presentation?

MBTI results

Response of PhD student to MBTI profile. Staggered at the accuracy.

Hi Terry, Thanks very much for the useful discussion on the MBTI results, I feel- and was almost amazed by its accuracy at doing so, that it provided a picture of my strengths and weaknesses. I hope to go on to investigate it further and build on these results. Kind Regards,