The Blob!

WOW, PhD’s are HARD! Who’d have thunk it?! In recent months my life has taken on a new form, one which is akin to the ‘amorphous blob of stuff’ David Allen always mentions when trying to espouse the benefits of GTD. Nowadays I feel a bit like a tree branch floating down a stream as it joins other tributaries before forming a huge, tumultuous river, and much like that tree branch I fear being snapped in two.

The PhD has really picked up pace, things still aren’t working but they aren’t working faster than they were before. This seems to be a common feature of many PhD projects and may explain why charities are very selective over who they fund. Having the patience and enthusiasm to keep doing science, trying to optimise a previously optimised method or try and midi-prep some damn plasmid for the 19th time can get rather disheartening. It is in this state of re-runs that I currently find myself.

Getting back to The Blob, I’m trying to figure out a way of dealing with him. The first weapon in my arsenal is OmniFocus, a GTD list manager which when properly implemented will allow me to have ‘downtime’ without worrying that something is blowing up, or that I need to do anything RIGHT NOW. I won’t go into the details yet again, suffice to say it’s not the easiest of tools to implement and can take time and effort to get it to work for you. But when it does it really does help you feel more in control and less like that branch about to ripped apart by the rapids.

The next weapon I’m training myself to use is the power of ‘No’. Learning to be realistic with your supervisor at your weekly meeting about what you can actually get done is an art form. While it may be useful to discuss with your supervisor what you would like to do, you need to tell her what you WILL do first before talking about the harebrained ideas you’ve come up with. This way she isn’t having unrealistic expectations for your next meeting when she’s expecting 8 Western blots, stripped and probed for equal loading and several Excel spreadsheets detailing the quantification data for the assays you said you’d do, when what you ACTUALLY have is just a smile and a couple of failed attempts of midi-prepping that damn plasmid!!!

The PhD side of a PhD student’s life is enough of challenge without having to manage a family-life, love-life and social-life. One tip which I’ve learnt from many post-docs is to treat your weekends as sacred. This is your down-time, when you step away from the bench, free your mind and try and relax. In theory this sounds ideal, in reality your other life-demands can end up making you feel like you’re working weekends. It’s here where I mention GTD again. GTD can help you stay on-top of all of your commitments, both in the lab and in your social life, and using it correctly combined with the ability to concentrate only on the task in hand will allow you to manage all aspects of your life at the same time. It is in this way that you can keep your weekend sacred and give yourself time to do what YOU want to do, rather than what you committed to 3 weeks ago when you drank a bit too much at that awful housewarming.

In summary, I’m keeping my head above water barely. Hopefully, through the use of the above methods I’ll be able to deal with whatever comes up without feeling like I’m about to breakdown and needing to lock myself away from the world for a month.

 

Starting a new PhD: What is a PhD

Ooo this is my first blog post written entirely in my iPad – be sure to forgive me any typos. The typing isn’t too bad in landscape mode – anywaaaaaay . . .

It’s been a while since my last blog post and this has been because I’ve been spending soo much time with Gari (my lovely boyfriend) and anytime I’ve not been with him I’ve been in Uni, growing cells and reading journal articles. So please forgive me!!

I just thought I’d tap out a quick series of blog posts to let you know about what it’s like to start a PhD.

I have just started my PhD at the Randall Division of Cell and Molecular Biophysics at King’s College London (University of the Year according to the guardian or the times according to the head of the graduate school).p

First i should probably explain what a PhD actually is. It’s normally a three year research degree which starts off as an MPhil degree course and after 9 months or so you submit a report and have a viva (like a scary interview on your work and the field of interest) which if you pass then allows you to progress onto a PhD program. PhDs are usually 3 years long with an additional year before you HAVE to submit your thesis. A thesis is essentially an extended piece of academic work which contributes something new to the field and proves that you can carry out research in the proper manner.

4 year PhDs come in a number of flavours. The first is a 4 year PhD with a rotational first year where you conduct a short project with 2 or 3 supervisors before finalising on one specific project and supervisor which you then do a 3 year PhD with. Here you get an additional year to submit your thesis as the first rotational year isn’t counted. Also sometimes you may get awarded an MRes following the rotational year depending on institution and programme.

My kind of 4 year PhD is arguably the best kind. I get a full stipend (funding for living expenses) in addition to having my bench fees payed (for reagents etc) for 4 full years. The advantage is that most PhD students tend to have to self fund and take on part time jobs after their third year as they have no money to perform experiments and have yet had chance to ‘write up’ their thesis. So I’ll get paid to sit at home and type out my thesis up until the point i submit it (which can be no later than 4 years from when i registered with the university. And that’s the downside, although i could do experiments right up until the last month in the 4 year programme, i MUST submit by the same date as any 3-year PhD who enrolled at the same time as me.

All in all i haven’t got a bad deal out of this ^_^

If you are failing badly, or things aren’t working out, you can leave the degree with an MPhil after the first year. Oh and I should probably clear up that once you have a PhD you are a proper Dr!! Medics are only honorary Drs =P hehe

That’s a brief overview of a PhD – throughout the PhD you submit various reports and have meetings and such but it is all just trying to make sure that you will be able to submit your thesis on time and that you will pass.

I hope this has been of use. Next time I’ll write more personally about MY PhD and his my first couple of weeks have gone. See ya!!!