Are you sure you want to do a Ph.D. degree?
Let’s be under no false impression, completing a Ph.D. isn’t easy. There will be times when you feel like Wile E Coyote chasing after the Roadrunner – a little bit out of your depth a lot of the time. It’s four years of your life, so make sure it is what you really want to do.
Choose your project, and supervisor, wisely
This is very important - Time after time, our experienced scientists at EI, including Erik Van-Den-Bergh (and I agree) say, “make sure you’re extremely passionate about exactly that subject.”
Treat it like a job
In an academic environment, it is highly likely that you will define your own schedule; there won’t necessarily be someone clocking you in and out of the office. Granted, you are still a student – and a Ph.D. degree still offers many of the perks of a student lifestyle.
Be organized
This is a no-brainer but still, it’s worth a mention. Take an hour on a Monday morning to come up with a list of short-term and long-term goals. You’ll probably have to present your work at regular lab meetings
Embrace change
don’t get bogged down in the details. Felix Shaw – one of our bioinformatics researchers at EI – put it best when he said, “it felt like I was running into brick walls all the way through [my Ph.D.]… you’d run into a brick wall, surmount it, only to run straight into another.”
Learn how to build, and use your network
As a Ph.D. student, you are a complete novice in the world of science and most things in the lab will be – if not new to you – not exquisitely familiar. This matters not, if you take advantage of the people around you.
Keep your options open
You should be aware that for every 200 Ph.D. students, only 7 will get a permanent academic post, so it’s incredibly unlikely that you’ll become a Professor – and even if you make PI, it probably won’t be until your mid-forties.