Congrats Oli, quite an achievement indeed.
Any tips as my better half has recently started her PhD...
Thank you cobo and I wish your partner the best of luck with her PhD!
These are my recommendations, though bare in mind it applies to a full-time PhD in Science, so might need some re-interpretation depending on what her subject is?
- It is a marathon, not a sprint. Much better to at least ?try? and establish a work/life balance that can be maintained for 3-4 years without ?burning out? so to speak.
- Do not get hung-up on all the administrative/coursework stuff. So long as you pass the half-way milestone board meeting, which upgrades the registration from MPhill to PhD, then all is well. Ultimately what matters is that she achieves a suitable body of work in order to write a Thesis of PhD quality, little reviews etc along the way more often then not do not make up the PhD and are therefore not particularly important.
- Spend some time establishing a system of keeping track of files and learning how to take proper notes. This is essential and will save her considerable time and effort down the line. As a Scientist, we need to keep record of ALL experimental details etc. and we use many pieces of equipment at different institutions (at times). As you can imagine keeping track of what?s-what can quickly become a frigging nightmare, and as a PhD student it is stressful when academics want to know where info is and what it relates to and you can?t immediately produce the goods.
Nothing to worry about, but certainly something to be mindful of ...
I personally found the app ?EverNote? to be a great Lab Book and note taking app. I then used a few directories on my laptop to organise things accordingly, but don?t do too many otherwise it becomes a maze. A great way to name files is to simply save them as the date e.g. ?270718?. So long as you have full details in the respectively dated note in EverNote, you can easily retrieve information.
Oh and one last tip on this, good practice is to create a .txt file within every major directory on equipment etc. In my case you can have massive numbers of files down the line, and if you take a little bit of time to update a text file in the directory, on a different PC, you can quickly work out you?re looking at, without being totally reliant on EverNote.
- Use your holidays, it ultimately makes no difference whether you get a PhD or not, or whether you will get a certain publication or not, but does massively improve moral. This and the first point are important as the ?PhD Blues? are very real, and everyone goes though low points.
- Last point that will be important later on, is to start working on the Thesis earlier rather than later. It?s never too early to start writing up materials and methods sections, and it is never too early to start making figures. On that second point, if you establish a format that her Supervisor wants for the Thesis and papers, then she can make loads of publication quality figures as she goes along. These can be stored in a PowerPoint file and then periodically can just flick through them all with her Supervisor. This is very efficient indeed, just make sure to put full information in the note section of each slide!
- Things like working as a Graduate Lab or Teaching Assistant, and presenting at conferences or internal seminars are useful things that can go on her C.V. so are well worthwhile IMO.
- Oh and last but by no means least, time the coffee breaks efficiently! It?s amazing how much more can be achieved if coffee breaks coincide with experimental breaks lol!
Although that?s a lighthearted point, the bigger picture is to be mindful of productivity, as it?s far better to clock-in, get the work done and clock-out in a timely fashion then to drag the same amount of work on for a much longer day. There are no brownie points for hours spent at work, only by achieving the work.
Well that?s all I can think of for now, if anything else comes to mind, or if any of my colleagues have any other tips I?ll be sure to let you know and update this thread.
Many thanks again,
- Oli
