Beyond The Thesis: Completing A Successful PhD

Abstract

Many factors lead to students undertaking a PhD. A student may, for example, be intellectually curious, and want to pursue an interest or understand a problem; or may be adventurous, and want to make a significant discovery; or be entrepreneurial, and want to create an innovation; or want to work with a particular scientist; or want to continue to participate in life on campus. Students may regard a PhD as an opportunity to acquire deep training in research in the field, and perhaps to distinguish themselves by completing a piece of major work, acquiring the title of 'doctor', and becoming a scientist. Perhaps surprisingly, many students seem to give only limited attention to the details of what their next step will be, even at the end of the PhD. While they may have a general goal to become an academic or researcher, these students have not explored what is involved in reaching that goal. Yet the activities of the PhD, perhaps even in the first year, can help shape each student's career. In particular, students need to be aware of their need to develop skills, and acquire experience, in areas beyond that of the core activities of research. Students do use the PhD to develop themselves. At the start of their PhDs, students are highly diverse, with individual strengths and weaknesses. The task of completing the PhD to some extent normalizes these differences: students find that they have to address their shortcomings, while exploiting their existing skills as they build an initial body of research. However, this development tends to be focused on the skills need for the PhD itself - writing, speaking, managing data, analysis of literature, design of experiments, and so on. Yet a PhD is also an opportunity for students to develop more broadly, and to position themselves for the career of their choice. Some students do not take advantage of this opportunity, while others, in their haste to finish, sidestep some of the aspects of PhD study from which they have the most to learn. In particular, an aspect of PhD study that is often overlooked is that it can be a period of intense personal development. The demands of undertaking such a long, concentrated piece of work can lead to intellectual rigor, intellectual independence, systematic work habits, and, perhaps most crucially, deepened self-assessment. The most successful scientists are not just technically capable, imaginative, lucid, and so on, but are aware of their limitations. In some cases these can be rectified through discipline and study; in others, they are factors to consider when choosing or shaping a career. Thus an effective student should approach the end of the PhD in a strategic way, seeking opportunities to develop the qualities that will help give an easy transition to the next career step, while taking a clear-eyed view of the likelihood of success in different kinds of work.