Hello Everybody!
I’m coming towards the end of my PhD and I can’t believe I’ve only just discovered you! Where have you been all my life?! I’m a forum virgin, so please be gentle. As the tailor said to the cool guy: “Nice threads!”

I just can’t get over the fact that you’re extremely generous and thoughtful in your advice and love helping a fellow traveller. I’ve also noticed that being an effective and efficient procrastinator, I mean, researcher (or is that just me! Freudian slip :) ), you love a five minute distraction, particularly one of those pop psychology quizzes that reveals so much about your personality.

I was talking to a friend the other day about what is really – no, *really* – important for PhD students. (You know: what they *actually* find invaluable throughout the process.) And he said, once people uncover what’s really important to them during the PhD experience, i.e., once they uncover what they value in doing it, these act like motivational buttons.

He said that one way to uncover what you value about the PhD experience is to ask yourself:

‘Stopping, and thinking for a moment about all the various aspects of doing your PhD – such as, the emotional, the financial, the training, the interaction with others – what’s really, no really, important to you about the experience of doing a PhD?’
Then ask:
‘What’s important to you about that?’
And then ask:
‘What’s important to you about that?’


He suggested asking the question ‘What’s important to you about that?’ three or four times until you drill down to the gold, to what’s really invaluable to you within the experience of doing a PhD. You know you’re on the right track because you have a sense of your answers ringing true, to the point where you astonish yourself by inexplicably realising: ‘OMG, *that’s* what’s important to me.’

Now, this might all be hogwash, but we all like a little experiment and I know from doing this quiz, and talking to others about what they actually found important in the PhD process, the results are simply quite inspiring and really motivating.

So I’d, and I’m sure others, would love to hear your answers, your ‘OMG, *that’s* what’s really important to me about the experience of doing a PhD’. So please, do tell.


... and it might help me win that bet I had with my friend.

Best, and a big THANK YOU

Playground

I'm in too far to do give up now, and I don't think I'd have started a PhD if I'd known what I was letting myself in for (I'm just being honest).  I dreamed last night I'd passed my viva with no corrections, and was severely depressed when I awoke to find out it was only a dream. That tells me I'm desperate to finish, and I am.  However, I suppose the most important thing to me is that I have achieved so much despite having been virtually unsupervised, and, even if I were to fail my PhD, nobody can take that away from me. Sorry to sound despondent.

I wouldn't call this a pop psychology quiz at all, it's a question wrapped up in a rather convoluted post. What is this bet people are supposed to be helping you win, out of curiosity?

Ouch Ruby! I asked you to be gentle as it was my first time and you were rougher than a gorilla wearing sandpaper. :) Nevertheless, thanks for the advice about the convoluted nature of the post. Something to consider. I thought, though, that all those pop psych 'water cooler' quizes were a series of questions. And the question I asked came from one of those.

However, the intention behind the question, and what me an my friend were talking about, was to find out what PhDs *really* find useful, important and of value to them throughout their research. This is as opposed to what the powers that be from on high think is important for us. To give two personal examples, if I may. One of the things that I have found *invaluable* is having a sense of 'knowing what I'm doing', as opposed to 'HAVING A PLAN', that every book, course, etc, on how to get a PhD tells us we should have. If you 'HAVE A PLAN', but don't have an internal sense of knowing what you're doing - and there is a difference - then to me, the plan's hollow.

The second thing that I have found invaluable throughout my PhD is the ability to cope. All coping boils down to a three-step process that actually, you can get good at. But do the books on how to get a PhD tell us that?! They and training courses talk of effectiveness and efficiency, but I think that one sign of these traits is our ability to cope when things go wrong. And if people think that I'm some fluffy la-la who doesn't put his money where his mouth is, I told Estelle Phillips this when she asked me how I found 'How to Get a PhD' (expecting me to say that it's the best thing since sliced bread) at my GRADSchool. 'How to Get a PhD' tells you that you will experience problems, but it doesn't give you any 'in an emergency, break glass' tips.

And this is where I'm grateful for your response Ginga, as I too have been in your situation with having a non-existent supervisor and I found it pretty soul-destroying. But I came out the other side.

So Ruby, if you and enough people - I know you're out there - tell me what you *actually* find and found important throughout your PhD, then I might, well, probably, tell you what the bet is. (And I'm very happy to tell people that coping strategy as I think it should be on the second page of every book on how to get a PhD.)

Best, take care, and

THANK YOU

Playground

ps: as we all know, it can be difficult to gauge the tone of an email. While I might have appeared angry in my reply, I wrote it with a huge smile on my face, loving Ruby's response and seeing it as part of the academic cut-and-thrust. Touche!

Hi PG,

Hi haven't had time to really sit down and follow your suggested process of reduction right back to what's most important in my PhD world, but I agree with what you say about plan v. knowledge. I think it's something to with 'inhabiting' the process or 'ownership' of it, which took me a while to achieve a sense of (... and maybe I won't feel it fully until I've finished the thing)

Although, if I did ask those questions I suspect that, for me, the networks of people around me might prove to be the most important aspect. I've been working within an organisation outside my college who do the same kind of work as I've been doing for fieldwork and it's given me a support structure in addition to my supervisors. Even so, I've struggled with feeling isolated but I think it would have been much worse without this set-up.

If I get the chance, I'll try and think it through and get back to you.

I've had no supervision and I ahve got angry and bitter about it - sometimes more than others. But it's also true that I have to be captain of my own ship - I can't be apart of someone ese's plan. I'm not really a team player - unless I'm head of the team ;-)

So although I have cursed my supervisor soundly and roundly - I just could not stand to be micro-managed. What I have really felt is the lack of involvement, interest and support - espeically when things went wrong. I agree about coping and thankfully I learned that from my pevious work experience and it came in very handy when at several points it looked my project was disintegrating. If things had turned out badly I would be very bitter I'm sure but things came round in the end so I'm prepared to be philosophical and forgiving.

So now I'm in the process of hopefully setting up a postdoc project - and I've got back some of my enthusiasm. The most important thing for me is having my own project - my own piece of soemthing that I own. I've done publishing and teaching - I'd be happy to do more teaching but I don't want to keep facilitating other people - enabling other people to do things. I want to do something myself. I enjoy the detective, puzzle-solving angle.

Sometimes it is very tedious, and not knowing if things will work out can be very depressing. When it's good - it's very, very good and very exciting. And when it's bad - it's pretty bad! I guess I'll keep going as long as I keep getting my fix from it and move on if that stops.

Hi Playground, thanks for a top post. I fully concur with Smildon; whilst I seem to harp on about a lack of practical supervision, I too cannot be micro-managed.  This happened to me on my first PhD attempt (am now on my second), whereby everything was over-scrutonised by my former supervisors; even break times were set in stone, and I lasted just a few months with them. In fact, I didn't even know my main research objectives until I was 6 months in; they were so secretive!  I think I am coping well in my current project, and I do love my work - it's a great life which I appreciate very much and I wouldn't change a thing.

I think the issue with a PhD is that it is a bit of a rollercoaster ride; some days are brilliant, others are just terrible - there seems to be no middle ground.  I have moments of genious, and times when I overlook the simplest things that my 6 year old son would spot. I presented my research at a national conference with gusto, only to die on my butt at the generic university research 'showcase' because of nerves.  I can't explain it - it's all ups and downs, but I love it all the same. I'd be lost without my PhD!

Hi Guys,

thanks for the replies - really appreciated.  Betty, Ginga, with responses like that, why the one star?

So, looking around the forum as well (i.e., at the really popular posts), it strikes me that what we really value in the process of getting a PhD is a special kind of support, which comes from both our supervisors and our peers: support that has both carrots and sticks; a bit of tough love - someone to crack the whip (although to some, whip-cracking is not mutually exclusive to a loving relationship). Am I right? Is that what's *really* getting us through this?

But it also strikes me that we also value is what the PhD represents to us.  I can't deny that it doesn't represent those egotistical things to me like 'being an expert' and 'Dr Playground' does have a certain ring to it :) But it also represents to me being part of the sheer naked thrill that is learning and engaging in truly fascinating stuff. What does it mean for you? Is it an utter headache on some days and the reason for being alive on others?

So is what we *really* value throughout the experience of the PhD are the two Ss: Support and Significance to help us with the 'inner' and 'outer' games of research? 

Best and again, THANK YOU

Playground