PhD Advice

7 min readAug 16, 2020

Recently a junior PhD student asked my advice on best-practices, attitudes, and general outlook when pursuing their PhD. Their impression was that I, as somebody with more PhD-years under his belt, would have valuable insight to share. While this is debatable, they wrote to me a few hours after our conversation, thanking me profusely for the comments. Below I share some of what we discussed in hopes that you may find this useful as well. If not, feel free to unfollow me on Twitter 🐦 @heikalkhan. ;)

Before I start, I want to emphasize that each person experiences a PhD differently and often under very different circumstances. This could be the result of personal learning style or communication habits: some are more visual learners and may prefer working on collaborative group projects, others may enjoy spending countless hours exploring the mathematical foundations of a problem alone, whereas others foster their most creative ideas during mid-day coffee chats on unrelated topics ☕️. Experiences may vary as a result of relationship factors such as the 1–1 interaction with their supervisor, and how well they get along with other lab members, the department, and the university. Of course, a PhD is (should be?) only one of a number of engagements that the candidates takes part in, and it’s silly to assume that personal and professional life will always be aligned; the unpredictability of factors that may be out of our control is what makes this chapter even more interesting.

With this disclaimer out of the way, here are some tips that worked for me personally. To better understand my background and motives, briefly: I am a PhD candidate in computer science, with a background in software engineering, and a drive to have (hopefully positive) impact through robust AI 🧠, scalable software 💻, and entrepreneurship💡.

source: https://www.tharawat-magazine.com/family-business-ownership/psychological-ownership-next-generation/

Own your PhD

Decide early on, ideally before starting, why you want to do a PhD, and what you hope to gain from it. There are many great articles that discuss this detail [1,2,3,4], here are some ideas to tickle your brain:

Do you hope to broaden your knowledge in a specific field (e.g., astrophysics)?
Is there a specific or personal problem (e.g., fairness in machine learning) that you would like to tackle?
Are you seeking a specific post-graduation career (e.g., in academia or at a research lab) a PhD is a (necessary) requirement?
Do you want to live in a particular city or country (e.g., to live in France and travel Europe), and continuing your education in this region is a way to accomplish that?

Having a personal answer to this question is very important. You should seek an answer without self-judgment and by honestly reflecting on your intentions. Inevitably, there will be times during your PhD when communication, experiments, results, or publications do not go as planned, or they may outright fail. There may be situations when you must make difficult choices about opportunities, perhaps as a result of conflict between personal and professional goals (e.g., should I pursue a 6-month fellowship while I am pregnant?). You will meet many people, with a diverse flavor of impressive backgrounds, and imposter syndrome always lurks in the shadows [5,6,7]. It is precisely at these critical points in time where awareness of your goals and intentions will help you think clearly about the next steps, what matters to you personally, and why.

source: https://theclaimsdesk.co.uk/support-network/

Build your support networks

Whatever your motivation, make sure to communicate them with your supervisor or academic mentor early on. While they may disagree with your motives, or suggest detours, or not be able to help you directly, as somebody more academically experienced than you, it’s important to hear their feedback. At worst, if you don’t reach a consensus due to irreconcilable differences in objectives or style, you can seek another supervisor. At best, you agree on the goals and in turn, set a research plan that works along those lines. In any case, a sensible supervisor would try to assist you through this. Mentoring you through your PhD towards milestones really is part of their job description [8,9]. On this note, please remember that both you and your supervisor are intelligent agents that understandably and on an average act in your best self-interest. Thus, it’s quite likely that you won’t be able to always get the support you need from your mentor alone.

Beyond your supervisor, it is important to realize that you are not alone in this. Perhaps the people that share and understand most of your going through are your lab members. Making an effort to be part of group lunches, after-work outings, or late-night coffee runs before a deadline are all great ways to learn more about your colleagues. Not only is this an opportunity to learn about their research and expand on your hard technical skills, but also through these interactions you will come to learn about similar struggles and further develop soft communication and empathy skills. I have personally found these interactions pretty rewarding, and preventative in terms of falling into my own lonely bubble concerning my research.

Finally, and rather counterintuitively, professional ambitions often require that you take some time away from them. Striking the right “professional/personal” balance is an individualistic question, and also rather difficult to answer. At critical points in time, this balance may be grossly violated (e.g., before submission deadlines, or due to unexpected personal hardship). You may find that this balance is thrown off at other times also (maybe you’ve fallen out of your running habits due to consecutively bad weather, and never got back?). Other circumstances might blur the lines entirely (a pandemic?). Regardless of the balance that works best for you, it may be helpful to think of a PhD as one of a number of engagements in your life, and hence why I prefer not referring to this as “work/life” balance. Building a support network outside of your professional circle, with whom you foster your personal interests, may not only reduce the risk of burn-out [10], it also nurtures creativity in your professional career, and it would allow for a more diverse development of your interests, ultimately resulting in more joy. As my father always says, “everything in moderation’’ (not too much, not too little).

source: https://hellodr.com.my/product/kardiamobile/

Hello, Dr. X

Whereas the previous two points apply generally to most profiles, this last point is more tailored towards individuals who seek to continue a post-PhD academic career. Admittedly, the message may be controversial or even narrow-minded; it’s the best I know of today and is a work-in-progress. Feedback is warmly appreciated!

If you plan on continuing in academia, or any field for that matter, then it’s important to be aware of some common metrics used to evaluate candidates. For better or for worse, publication records, academic talks, short course offerings, and general service to the community are commonly used yardsticks to assess candidates at various levels of their career: from becoming a PhD candidate, to defending, to writing grants, and applying for tenure.

In this game, proposal writing is a common requirement also. Here candidates are typically asked to write about 1–3 sub-fields towards which they have meaningfully contributed or plan to contribute. Essentially, the committee expects to see strong candidates to have not only a grasp, but a mastery of the literature, tools and methodology, and prospective ideas of said subfields.

Extrapolating backward, it seems reasonable to expect a senior near-defense PhD student to be somewhat of an expert (not necessarily world-class but not far away either) in at least the one area of research (likely the core idea of their thesis). One way to think of this is, when you graduate, you become Dr. X. E.g., Dr. microbiome, Dr. algorithmic recourse, Dr. machine learning fairness, or Dr. charm quarks (yes, that’s really a thing [11]).

What will you become? What is your X?

Summary

In summary, my personal experience has taught me that a PhD is a game of tradeoffs, and balancing them in such a way that works for you is what makes it a unique experience for each candidate. In your PhD, you will be challenged in ways you may not be ready for, and you will grow as a result. Having clear goals, building a support network (professional and personal), and focusing intently on the central topic of your thesis are three suggestions that may make navigating these waters a bit easier. With that, good luck, and I would be happy to hear your comments below.