Her PhD on Parkinson’s disease didn’t go exactly as planned, but in the end the difficulties made Liesbeth Aerts a happier scientist.
One year ago today, I found myself in a lecture theatre, presenting my research to a thesis jury. During the years leading up to that moment, there were many days when I worried whether I was ever going to make it that far. When I finally did, most of all, I felt relieved.
Like many others, I had imagined my PhD differently. I was prepared for the hard work and long hours. I thought that if I gave it my all, I would be a successful scientist. My ambitions took a blow when faced with failure after failure. For well over a year, I felt like a fraud, having fooled my supervisors and myself into thinking that I had what it took to become a good scientist. Looking back, I’d tell my younger self to take it easy.
Cut yourself some slack
Even Nobel prize winners were first-year students once. They messed up their experiments, needed help and most likely suffered just as much as you did. Don’t expect to do everything right the first time around. No matter how hard you work and how motivated you are, you’ll need to accept that becoming better takes time and requires failure.
One mistake at a time, I got better, and as time went by, I realised others were making educated guesses just like I was. They too didn’t understand everything during seminars. Could it be that, just maybe, I wasn’t the dumbest person in the room?
Read more: Pondering my PhD worth after graduation.
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