🤓Doing a PhD
General Advice
Starting a PhD is a major undertaking: one is signing up to thinking about a topic for many consecutive years, and being guided in their journey towards becoming an independent scientific thinker by a specific supervisor.
Picking a good supervisor
Of course it's very important to pick a research area you're passionate about. But having a productive PhD experience often comes down to a strong supervisor-student relationship. Here is a nice summary article: Ten simple rules for choosing a PhD supervisor.
It's important to:
personally respect the research content and style of your supervisor: read their papers and other outputs they've produced.
be aligned in motivation—do the types of problems that excite your supervisor also excite you?
work productively and feel supported through your PhD candidature: if possible, do a short research project with the potential supervisor to get a feel for the relationship.
talk to the supervisor's past and current students to try to get an open and frank understanding of what being their student is like. For example, our group has contact information for all past students.
All supervisors have positives and negatives. Once you have a clear picture of what the positives and negatives of your potential supervisor are, make the judgement about whether that combination will suit your style and what you hope to get out of your PhD.
A good supervisor will dedicate themselves to training their students to be the best scientists and humans that they can be. Their goals should be aligned with the student's best interests, rather than their own. It's a good sign if your potential supervisor listens to the student and their goals and aspirations, and helps plan a research path that is best for the student (a bad sign if the supervisor doesn't mention alternatives to their research or apply pressure to work with them).
Getting through a PhD
A major reason why PhDs are difficult is that the skills that make a successful researcher are quite different to what make a good undergraduate student. For example:
A PhD is about building independence research skills that train you into being someone that others can trust for reliable, thoughtful, and carefully considered information.
You can see the University of Sydney's list of PhD qualities here.
In this pursuit, speed is far less important than accuracy: it's much better to think slowly and carefully than to be wrong.
It can be a terrifying transition to be primarily responsible for what you produce. Luckily you will have a supervisor and research team to support you, you have three years of practice, and with the right support, can bring a deeper depth of understanding and confidence.
Here is some useful material on the challenges of research life:
A reminder that research requires different skills than you are taught in undergrad.
Some advice for being a scientist.
A nice analysis of acknowledgements sections of PhD theses at ANU gives an insight into different student experiences of doing a PhD: https://science.anu.edu.au/news-events/news/unexpected-poetry-phd-acknowledgements.
PhD Submission
Good to read other graduate theses from Sydney Uni. Here is a searchable database: https://ses.library.usyd.edu.au/handle/2123/345
After a PhD
It's useful to think about what types of futures your present might lead to. Some PhD graduates will pick a research career.
If you try for an independent fellowship, these are very competitive. Here is a thorough list of opportunities.
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