Twenty things I wish I’d known when I started my PhD
- according to Nature.com
Maintain a healthy work–life balance by finding a routine that works for you. It’s better to develop a good balance and work steadily throughout your programme than to work intensively and burn out. Looking after yourself is key to success.
Discuss expectations with your supervisor. Everyone works differently. Make sure you know your needs and communicate them to your supervisor early on, so you can work productively together.
Invest time in literature reviews. These reviews, both before and after data collection, help you to develop your research aims and conclusions.
Decide on your goals early. Look at your departmental guidelines and then establish clear PhD aims or questions on the basis of your thesis requirements. Goals can change later, but a clear plan will help you to maintain focus.
“I don’t need to write that down, I’ll remember it” is the biggest lie you can tell yourself! Write down everything you do — even if it doesn’t work. This includes meeting notes, method details, code annotations, among other things.
Organize your work and workspace. In particular, make sure to use meaningful labels, so you know what and where things are. Organizing early will save you time later on.
It’s never too early to start writing your thesis. Write and show your work to your supervisor as you go — even if you don’t end up using your early work, it’s good practice and a way to get ideas organized in your head.
Break your thesis down into SMART (specific, measurable, attainable, relevant and timely) goals. You will be more productive if your to-do list reads “draft first paragraph of the results” rather than “write chapter 1”. Many small actions lead to one complete thesis.
The best thesis is a finished thesis. No matter how much time you spend perfecting your first draft, your work will come back covered in corrections, and you will go through more drafts before you submit your final version. Send your drafts to your supervisor sooner rather than later.
Be honest with your supervisor. Let them know if you don’t understand something, if you’ve messed up an experiment or if they forgot to give you feedback. The more honest you are, the better your relationship will be. Helping your supervisor to help you is key.
Back up your work! You can avoid many tears by doing this at least weekly.
Socialize with your lab group and other students. It’s a great way to discuss PhD experiences, get advice and help, improve your research and make friends.
Attend departmental seminars and lab-group meetings, even (or especially) when the topic is not your area of expertise. What you learn could change the direction of your research and career. Regular attendance will also be noticed.
Present your research. This can be at lab-group meetings, conferences and so on. Presenting can be scary, but it gets easier as you practise, and it’s a fantastic way to network and get feedback at the same time.
Aim to publish your research. It might not work out, but drafting articles and submitting them to journals is a great way to learn new skills and enhance your CV.
Have a life outside work. Although your lab group is like your work family, it’s great for your mental health to be able to escape work. This could be through sport, clubs, hobbies, holidays or spending time with friends.
Don’t compare yourself with others. Your PhD is an opportunity to conduct original research that reveals new information. As such, all PhD programmes are different. You just need to do what works for you and your project.
The nature of research means that things will not always go according to plan. This does not mean you are a bad student. Keep calm, take a break and then carry on. Experiments that fail can still be written up as part of a successful PhD.
Never struggle on your own. Talk to other students and have frank discussions with your supervisor. There’s no shame in asking for help. You are not alone.
Enjoy your PhD! It can be tough, and there will be days when you wish you had a ‘normal’ job, but PhDs are full of wonderful experiences and give you the opportunity to work on something that fascinates you. Celebrate your successes and enjoy yourself.
This was part of my required readings this week and I have never related to an academic text more so I had to share.
I tried studying at a Cafe last night. The noise and people made it hard to focus on the lectures, but the food was good! I had tomato-basil soup, fruit, and some chamomile tea.
A NEW ISSUE OF THE ELONOMH TIMES! oh my it has been too long! i definitely want to get back into the habit of posting these mini-magazines fortnightly,,
and be sure to send any post suggestions to my ask box!
OH by the way cyn, do you have any like study tips, bc i like never learned how and it's been my downfall lolz
secrets from a girl who’s seen it all on how to study ⋆˚｡⋆୨୧˚
as someone who spent the first two years of secondary school aka the years i was supposed to figure out how to study in covid and didn’t learn how to until like a year ago i have many thoughts on this ☺️ under the cut!! if you'd like specific subject study techniques or anything else lmk!! (also yes i’m bringing back sfagwsia)
it’s never too late to start experimenting with study techniques!!
i feel like so many people (myself included) are hesitant to start learning how to study because they’re like “i’ve lasted this long without it, why should i start now?” or because they’re scared they’ll try something and it won’t work out!!!! if you’re in that mindset i urge you to leave it. trust me it will eventually catch up to you whether that’s in your last years of high school or in uni or whenever! starting to learn how to study even if it’s in senior year is better than never learning how to study at all :) those skills will 100% help you out in the future ☺️ and you’ll have no regrets because you’ll know that at least you tried
in order to choose which study techniques to try out, focus on your own strengths and weaknesses
study social medias like studytok / studyblr / studysta (?) can be very helpful for finding different techniques, but also very very overwhelming! just because someone said they got straight As by using these notes and these flashcards, doesn’t mean they’ll also work for you :) and thats totally okay because we're all different! you are not the problem here ♡
im not very good at explaining this so i'll give myself as an example: i have a very short attention span & can't remember things unless i write them down. in order to study efficiently, i don't make myself work for too long (pomodoro timer is amazing for this!!! i like to do 50-60 mins work / 10-15 mins break) and make summarised notes from whatever source im referencing (NOT copying it down word for word btw!) then make flashcards out of my notes (digitally) and when i practice said flashcards, i dont think of the answer or say it out loud, i write it down on a whiteboard!! that way im implementing as much physical writing as possible which really helps me personally
general study do's and dont's
although i did just say everyone's different and you should find your own study methods, there are a couple things i'd highly recommend and a couple things i'd 100% avoid
do practice questions!!! idk if you have past papers in the us but if you do practice those! i know its really scary at first because you're worried you might not do well, but the best way to see your strengths and weaknesses in a subject is through practicing questions (bonus points if you do it in exam conditions / as close as you can get to them) & also a lot of the time students know the content very well but just don't know how to apply it the way the question wants so they end up not doing well
do active recall/any sort of memory testing. do not just make notes or flashcards and never use them again! last year i discovered that paper flashcards, although i do get to write them by hand, don't help me much because they take me very very long to make and i always forget to study from them, so i switched to digital! if you have notes, look through them once then try blurting everything you remember on a spare piece of paper or a whiteboard, then fill out the gaps in a different colour and try again after a bit :) memory testing is SO SO important for school unfortunately our education system relies heavily on having a good memory
don't study passively. you'll learn little or nothing at all!! if you're making notes from a source, don't just copy them word for word. try summarising or rewording them in order to get yourself to think a little :) something i like to do is read the content a few times then look away when im making my own notes to see how i'd word it myself! (obv there are exceptions to this like specific definitions or wtv). if you're watching a video, don't just sit there!!! make notes on it and, again, try to reword what it says so you remember it better :)
don't waste time. this is such a cynthiacore issue LOL im the type of person who takes her time to do the simplest thing and then i wonder why it takes me a week to study one unit of content 😭 an example of this is the thing with the paper flashcards above. it would take me days-weeks making them so, when i realised this, i decided to switch to digital in order not to waste time & found a way i can still physically write! a more recent example is when i started doing my quote analyses for the odyssey, i'd write them in my notebook and then type them up on my laptop. mid-writing one day, i realised writing them in my notebook was a complete waste of time considering i was also putting them on my laptop and im more likely to look at them if they're on my laptop, so i just started doing them all on my laptop :)
stay consistent
consistency is KEY with studying!! studying for 8 hours one day will not help you at all if you don't study at all the rest of the week. try to do even the smallest task every day in order to build that habit! it'll be so useful for remembering the content in the long run and also for exam season when you will have to study every day since your grade will actually depend on it
at some point we gotta acknowledge that getting the majority of your news and takes and general opinions from tumblr is not meaningfully different than getting it from tiktok even though on here it's in textual form. understanding the world through the lens of viral videos vs understanding it through breathless unsourced text posts written by dykeastarion69
#this is what made me switch to actually reading news sites regularly some years ago#(and when something's controversial or doesn't seem quite right I look up multiple news sources to try to get a fuller picture) (@thirddoctor)
A quick reminder that the Associated Press is totally free, and also often covers the news stories that Tumblr users say no one is covering. NPR is also free. So is ProPublica.
Also, here's a chart that might be helpful, in terms of determining bias and reliability: Interactive Media Bias Chart
She is not directly paid for her work to vet papers, she has been hit with legal action & death threats by scientists who hate that she's exposing them and their financial fraud, and she keeps at it every single day, combing through thousands of papers to make science more fair. Please consider supporting her!
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