How to get a PhD

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How to get a PhD

• Petter Andreas Berthelsen
• CeSOS, NTNU
• February 9, 2005

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Contents

• What is a PhD
• Motivation for doing a PhD
• Practical aspects
• Planning, time/financial management
• Doing research
• Managing supervisor
• Writing and publishing
• Psychological aspects
• Summary

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What is a PhD

• Someone holding a PhD-degree is a fully
  professional researcher in his/her field of
  study.
• Objective of the PhD programme
• Training candidates to be independent researchers
  at an international level
• Getting a PhD learning the rules as the game
  goes along

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Motivation for doing a PhD

• Individual experiences
• Make an outstanding contribution
• Enhance career opportunities
• Continuing the learning process
• No particular reason
• Most likely to change over time
• Why go through it?
• Satisfaction of accomplishment
• Doing something special
• Meeting many interesting people

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Doing a PhD

• It is hard work
• Do not expect someone else to do the job

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Planning PhD research

• Identify a field of interests
• Identify possible topics
• Construct a plan with supervisor
• Should gradually lead to a PhD by solving a
  sequence of tasks
• Pilot study and thesis proposal
• What has been done before?
• What needs to be done? How?
• Make room for possible changes of outcome
• Data collection and analysis
• Final writing up

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Time management

• Long-term goal
• Only a vague overall plan
• Short-term goals
• Should be clearly defined (small, achievable
  goals)
• Running out of time
• May seem long time in the beginning, but short at
  the end
• Plan early and involve supervisor
• Starting a new job
• Do not lose sight of the time constraints
• Follow up deadlines
• Evaluate the progress

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Financial management

• Get an overview
• Keep track of your resources
• Should be part of the PhD training
• Additional funding
• Learn how to obtain funding for research
• Attending conferences
• Lab equipment
• Extra time

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Doing research

• Observe and learn from others
• Read papers
• Consult with supervisor/colleagues
• Examine data critically
• Find limits to your results
• Applicability of methods
• Verification and validation
• Verification consistent with mathematical
  formulation
• Validation consistent with real physics
• Collaboration, not competition

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Managing your supervisor

• You have a right to be supervised
• Regular meetings
• Reduce the communication barrier
• Help supervisor to give you better feedback
• Prepare yourself for meetings
• Ask when you have a question
• A good supervisor will launch you to the orbit
  from where you can fly yourself
• If things are not working out
• Consider consulting others
• Consider to change supervisor (last possible
  outcome)

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The PhD thesis

• Purpose
• To demonstrate that you are capable of
  scientific writing
• Communicating and reporting your results properly
• Only a small step regarding the originality is
  needed
• Monograph vs. collection of papers
• Start early
• Write down ideas and findings continuously
• Time management
• Takes longer time than intended
• Publish

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Writing the thesis

• Outline the thesis
• Topics
• Keywords
• Sections/Chapters
• Introductory part (background, literature review)
• Main part (main theory, your method, etc)
• Results and discussion
• Summary, conclusion and further work
• Spelling and grammar
• Do not make it too long
• Revise and redraft

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Publishing papers 3

• Do high quality research
• Write an excellent paper
• Choose right journal
• Improve your paper while waiting for the reviews
• Thank and praise the reviewers
• Address the reviewers comments
• Acknowledge the remaining questions
• Neutralize remaining conflicts
• Thank the editor

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Writing excellent papers 4

• Recognize that you have a result
• State your main result
• Work out special cases
• Be consequent with notation
• Collect background material
• Produce numerical results
• Write the introduction
• Write the conclusion
• Write the abstract

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PhD process

• Can be a punch in the face
• Be prepared

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Psychological aspects

• Enthusiasm
• Full of enthusiasm at beginning
• Likely to diminish over time
• Overambitious estimates of what to accomplish
• Isolation
• Working alone on a topic
• Lack of intellectual stimulation and exchange of
  ideas
• Independency
• Less need for supervision

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Psychological aspects

• Interest in work
• Becoming absorbed in the work
• Occupies your mind
• Boredom
• Getting nowhere, being stuck, fed up
• Monotonic and repetitive work
• Finalizing the work

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Psychological aspects

• Frustration
• Missing the big contribution
• Ideas not working properly
• Lack of proper supervision/support
• Not enough time to do everything
• A job to be finished
• It is just a job that needs to be finished
• Do not have to make outstanding contribution

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Psychological aspects

• Happiness (Euphoria)
• Positive feedback
• Getting papers accepted
• Approved thesis
• Finished the trial lecture oral defence
• Finished what now?
• From hard work to regular life
• Fill the gap

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Find motivation

• Aim high!
• Give your self a treat

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Summary

• PhD is not a mystery but a task
• Determination and application, rather than
  brilliance, will lead you toward a PhD
• Set realistic goals as short term achievements
• Long term goal getting a PhD
• Ask your supervisor/colleagues
• Give your self a treat
• There is a life after the PhD! (be prepared)

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References

• 1 E.M. Phillips and D.S. Pugh, How to get a
  PhD a handbook for students and their
  supervisors, McGraw-Hill
• 2 A. Sabelfeld, How to get a PhD Experience
  in Computer Science, Chalmers University of
  Technology
• 3 D.S. Bernstein, Professor Bernsteins advice
  on getting your paper published, University of
  Michigan
• 4 D.S. Bernstein, Professor Bernsteins ten
  steps to writing a paper, University of Michigan
• And many others
• Try www.google.com and search for how to get a
  PhD.
• Get about 4.530.000 hits!!!