Around this time last year, I published a post about my experiences from my 2nd year of PhD study. I had just completed my PhD transfer viva, meaning I could upgrade from an MPhil to a PhD officially; that was roughly my halfway point. I’m now approaching the mid-to-end of my third year, and I should have just under 6 months to finish up all my lab work and data collection before I enter ‘write up stage’.
So far, my third year has been ok – like any PhD journey, there have been some exciting days and opportunities, but also plenty of struggles.
Personally, I’m finding the lab portion of my work quite relentless. When experiment after experiment fails, and every avenue has been exhausted, it’s easy to feel disheartened and drained, and it’s hard to stay resilient. Especially, when you feel the pressure of needing copious amounts of meaningful data for your thesis and/or publications. When analysing my data, there is ALWAYS that voice in my heard saying ‘is this all you’ve done in 3 years?!’, and there is the worry your examiner will think the same. Each failed experiment makes me more and more aware that I’m running out of time and money, but such is life during a PhD.
Unlike my second year, where I was just plodding away in the lab, a different part of my brain has now switched on. Now I’m thinking more strategically about what I need to include in my thesis, what my examiner may ask me, and how I can pull together this large research project. I feel like I’m now thinking more like a researcher as appose to a student – I’m making more links and critiquing my own work. This year I feel more confident in my capabilities as a researcher, but there are still the days where imposter syndrome kicks in; again, it’s all part of the process.
Generally though, I do feel in a fairly privileged position; you hear horror stories in the PhD community, and see students go through some terribly tough times. I’m lucky to have a supportive supervisory team, and to anyone considering starting a PhD I really must stress the importance of this.
On a personal note, building from what I discussed in last year’s post, planning my days/weeks and deadlines has really helped. Starting a PhD is literally so daunting, because you have this huge task at hand that you must structure and manage entirely yourself. Compared to my first and second years, my ability to project manage has really come along; I now break tasks down into more manageable chunks, rather than panicking, avoiding, and feeling guilty (I’ve forced myself to tone down the guilt, because it’s so counterproductive).
Outside of the lab, I’ve made some great strides as a scientist. I won second place for presenting my research at my University Doctoral Conference, and in the same month I got my first abstract accepted for an international conference! I’ve also continued to write the odd guest post for other blogs or online magazines, which always makes me feel pretty accomplished. These little wins really help keep morale up through the process.
Although your third year still feels like you’ve got a long way to go, it flies by. You can see the end, but it still feels so far. The pressure really sets in, and so does the uncertainty. Where is the limit? How much data is enough? Is any of this good enough? You want to finish, but you want more time to get data. It’s an everyday mental tug of war and balancing act.
No comments:
Post a Comment