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According to the Guardian’s recent article 5 things a successful PhD student would never do, any PhD student who is stressed and overworked is doing it wrong. You can seemingly choose not to get stressed about a PhD, so any problems you experience are essentially self-inflicted.
However, in reality it often seems like the most successful PhD students are those that can show a dedication to their work that crosses the line into clinically alarming. A career in academia (often the point of doing a PhD) is an increasingly demanding and difficult thing to obtain. And PhD students get a lot to deal with as a result.
Obviously the context, nature of the research, the field you’re in, the institution or group you’re part of can all have a massive impact on your success, so a simple guide that applies to everyone is highly unlikely. But saying “PhD students should be more relaxed and easy going in order to succeed” very much overlooks the reality of the situation, going by how it seems to many currently experiencing it.
So with this in mind, here’s an alternative five things successful PhD students would never do, based on how it looks to the many currently in that position.
Have alternative interests
Are you a PhD student? Yes? Are you reading this? Yes? Then you are a BAD PhD student! The fact that you have time to fritter away reading pointless blogs show you aren’t dedicated enough to your research. Shame on you!
You have been given 3 years’ worth of funding (if you’re lucky) to do enough research to fill a thesis. Not funding to “go out”, “have hobbies” or “enjoy life”, it’s to do research! And can you guarantee that your research will be successful? No? Then you’d better get cracking with it. And no, you can’t blog about science; if you have that much free time then why not just knit a blanket with your results on and use it to keep a horse warm?
If you have an experiment that takes several hours to run, then that’s a perfect opportunity to sleep and avoids all this “going home” nonsense. When people go home at the end of a working day, do you know what they call that? Quitting time. And are you a quitter? You want to experience a 9 to 5, get yourself a watch and stare at it while you write up your data with the other hand.
Some people whine about needing to leave the lab to “eat”, but anyone who can’t find sufficient nutrients from lab refuse and out of date chemicals doesn’t deserve to call themselves a scientist. Science doesn’t sleep! Isaac Newton didn’t get to switch gravity off for the weekend for a caravan holiday. Science sets the schedule, not you, and science. Never. Stops! If you can’t keep up, then go amuse yourself in an easier role. There’s plenty more where you came from!
Maintain relationships with friends and family
Some people like to see their family, friends, partners, etc. Some people don’t have PhDs. If you drew a Venn diagram of these people, it would be just a circle. What is a friend? A friend is someone who isn’t responsible for doing your research, and can only distract from it.
What are family? They’re the people who “raised” you perhaps, but did you ask for that? No, you didn’t. Forget about staying in touch with them, being able to say you’ve got a PhD will provide them with enough vicarious pride to more than make up for it. Imagine the satisfaction they’ll feel when they tell people you’re a proper scientist (assuming they can remember your name).
And as for partners/lovers, well they’re like a combination of friends and family except they're around more often.
The pipette, the centrifuge, the accelerator, the stats software; they are your family now. They ask for nothing, they just give. If they don’t give you the things you need? Well, you obviously did it wrong.
Show emotions
Feeling stressed or panicked? Well stop it. There, doesn’t that feel better. Some might say you can’t control your emotions like this, but those people aren’t scientists. In Star Trek, the Vulcans are a superior race because they control their emotions, so if you want to live long and prosper in science then you’d better do the same.
Yes, you may hear about people having a breakdown due to the stress, or just generally feeling overwhelmed. Don’t worry about them; it’s just simple Darwinian selection, they shouldn’t be here in the first place, they are weak. You are not weak, you are strong! And strong people don’t show emotions.
Avoid getting published
Of course, there are many PhD students who don’t care about getting published in a high-impact journal during their PhD. Feel free to ask them about why they chose this route next time they’re serving you an Americano.
But you, you want to succeed don’t you? If not, why are you even here? Then you need to publish or perish. And don’t think of that as an exaggeration, you should genuinely assume that your supervisor is going to have you assassinated if you don’t publish. You’re essentially squandering his grant money and resources by doing work that nobody will hear about, a hit squad would probably be cheaper in the long run.
Many societies have specific Rites of passage in order to be accepted as a success. In modern day science, it’s publishing in a journal, which is probably as gruelling and ethically dubious as any. But it has to be done, if you want to prove you’re a man (it helps if you’re a man).
Accept reality
So your experiment hasn’t provided the results you’d hoped for. You should probably resign yourself to this and write up an honest and insightful report. That’s what you should do if you’re a loser. But you’re not a loser, you’re a PhD student! So do it again. And again, and again, until you get the results you want. But couldn’t you just write up a null result?
Hah! Very amusing.
Is there a long waiting list to use the all-important multi-million pound equipment you need for your research? No there isn’t. Just use it. People might complain, but what does that matter? They aren’t you. Technicians are busy? No they aren’t. If they’re not doing what you want, they’re not doing anything important.
Not enough hours left in the day to finish crucial research? Run out of resources before completion. No you haven’t. Just deny the reality of the situation, and you’ll soon prove yourself a worthwhile and successful PhD student.
Bonus tip: don’t compare yourself to others
The whole point of a PhD is to do new, original research that reveals completely new information to the world of science, and society at large. Ergo, nobody has ever done exactly what you’re doing before. Advice, tips, examples, help, all this is great. But don’t let anyone dictate to you how you should be feeling, as it’s technically impossible for them to know for certain. And that includes this article.
This last one is real, by the way. For pity’s sake, please ignore all the others.
Dean Burnett wasn’t especially good at PhD research and now writes stuff like this for the Guardian. He provides other cautionary tales on Twitter, @garwboy
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