Mastering Your PhD: Survival and Success in the Doctoral Years and Beyond

"Mastering Your PhD: Survival and Success in the Doctoral Years and Beyond" helps guide PhD students through their graduate student years. Filled with practical advice on getting started, communicating with your supervisor, staying the course, and planning for the future, this book is a handy guide for graduate students who need that extra bit of help getting started and making it through.

While mainly directed at PhD students in the sciences, the book's scope is broad enough to encompass the obstacles and hurdles that almost all PhD students face during their doctoral training. Who should read this book? Students of the physical and life sciences, computer science, math, and medicine who are thinking about entering a PhD program; doctoral students at the beginning of their research; and any graduate student who is feeling frustrated and stuck. It's never too early - or too late!

This second edition contains a variety of new material, including additional chapters on how to communicate better with your supervisor, dealing with difficult people, how to find a mentor, and new chapters on your next career step, once you have your coveted doctoral degree in hand.

Read more: Mastering Your PhD: Survival and Success in the Doctoral Years and Beyond

Source: Springer

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Pondering my PhD worth after graduation.

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.

Source: blogs.nature.com