Here are my top ten tips for PhD candidates. Hopefully one or more will make a big difference!
- Don’t rely on one supervisor as your mentor you’ll need a network of support, family, friends, fellow students/candidates and supervisors.
- In research and academic terms, this is probably the most freedom you will have in terms of what to study and how to go about it. It won’t always be like this, so enjoy it while you can.
- Sharpen up your networking skills. One good example is to open up communications with some of the leading corresponding authors in your field. Don’t just know who they are, communicate with them, without being a pain. After all, they are called corresponding authors for a reason!
- Choose your PhD supervisor with enormous care. Your decision of which supervisor to use is hugely important to your likely success and enjoyment of your PhD journey.
- Because the viva voce is the thing most PhD candidates stress about the most, be preparing for it right from the start. Yes – spend years preparing for it, don’t leave it until the weeks after submission. Imagine yourself defending your thesis right from the time you submit your proposal.
- If your organisational skills and time management are bad and you have a history of that throughout your university life then do something about it! Organising a PhD both the writing and the fieldwork is a major task, and you’ll suffer if you can’t organise yourself and stick to deadlines.
- Understand what technology can do for you and use it. This generation of candidates have technology available to them that their predecessors can only dream of. Smartphones, smart speakers, ebooks, countless interesting apps, digital recorders, superfast laptops and tablets, email, video calling, I could go on and on.
- Keep a blog of your journey. By keeping an online diary you will be able to reflect on your experiences and keep a record. Your experiences will be interesting for those who start the journey after you. You may also want to include some reflections in your thesis. It will help you answer some of the examiners favourite viva questions like – “Looking back what would you differently?”
- We know the PhD is a journey. What we should also remember is that this journey requires mental and physical health, so take care of yourself. Regular exercise, a healthy diet and a serious attitude to relaxation and beating stress are all so important. Try to keep the late nights and overindulgence to a minimum. Build good habits into your routine.
- Keep time for friends and family. A PhD is not a journey of solitude. Make sure you build time into your routine for friends and family. Keep up your levels of communication because you can be sure that there will be times during your PhD when you really need them for support. Don’t go quiet on them, being a doctoral candidate doesn’t mean you have to hide yourself away!
So there we have it – ten tips for PhD candidates.
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