Tag: PhD

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There is no magic formula…(sorry!)

miracle

I recently attended a mentoring event that left me faintly frustrated and I was finding it hard to put into words exactly why. Eventually it came to me – at these events people always want the answer to the same question: what is the magic formula for succeeding* in academia? The problem is that there isn’t one, and I always feel really bad having to say that.

Sadly being smart is not enough. You need to work hard (not 24/7 or anything insane but you can’t slack off all the time and expect to succeed) and you need to be lucky. That luck can involve being in the right place at the right time, having the right skills, or knowing the right person. Of course people make their own luck, and being in the right place is not going to help you if you don’t also have the CV to be able to grab the opportunity. But still I would say that luck plays a fairly large part in most people’s careers. Of course you need publications, preferably in well-respected journals (Science and Nature papers would be a bonus!). But how many publications depends on your field, the post and, importantly, who you are competing with. The same applies to grants, presentations, teaching, outreach etc. This makes giving generic advice really difficult.

Another problem is that things are changing rapidly in the academic job market. Often we get advice from PIs who got their jobs in a completely different economic and academic climate. For example, I got a PhD with no papers, no research experience, and when I was half way through my MSc degree. These days this wouldn’t be enough for me to get PhD funding from the Irish Research Council. My point here is that you should take generic advice with a grain of salt, and also try to avoid getting annoyed with PIs for not giving you the “magic formula”. All we can do is tell you about our personal experiences.

What kinds of advice might be more useful (beyond the obvious advice to “write more good papers”)? First, before you’re looking for jobs take a senior academic in your field (preferably several) out for a coffee to show them your CV and ask them if there are any obvious gaps. This gives you the opportunity to fill those gaps before it becomes an issue. Second, when you start applying for jobs, try and get as much information about the job as possible from the advert but also ask people in the department if you can. This might save you time, for example if it turns out there is an internal candidate or if your CV is really not competitive, or give you an idea what the department is really looking for. Third, if you apply for jobs and get rejected, try and get feedback. This won’t always happen due to the volume of applications, and it won’t always be useful, but it’s worth a try. And don’t let rejections discourage you, keep on trying!

Good luck, and if you do find the magic formula please let us know!

*this assumes that getting a permanent job is equivalent to success!

Author

Natalie Cooper @nhcooper123

Photo credit

http://cnx.org/

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A Day in the Life of a PhD Student

nine_to_fiveWe thought it might be interesting to share what the daily life of a PhD student actually looks like. So here are three perspectives on the average day.

Adam

A typical day for me begins between 8 and 9. I start out by checking my emails for correspondence and any interesting new papers that have been published. You typically have content alerts set up to send directly to your email account. As the blog administrator, I often upload new posts to our site in the morning.

I’ll usually be in the middle of composing a paper given that this is the main part of a PhD student’s work. This has three aspects to it, reading, writing and coding. I don’t adhere to a rigid timetable day by day, instead I’ll just pick one of the three that I’m interested in doing at the time.

I take a break at 11 and 1 where I talk to my friends about work as well as shooting the breeze. I work until 5 or 6 most days and if I begin to flag in the afternoon with doing research I’ll try my hand at writing a blog post. I share my office with four other people so the idea of the lonely academic is definitely not applicable in my case.

Thomas

Fortunately my day does not only consist of writing papers and analysing data! In fact I spend also a good amount of time doing rather chilled out stuff (such as drinking coffee, reading/writing sciency blogs, checking conferences or trendy papers on twitter or reading/writing emails). I also spend some nice hours chatting with my colleagues, whether it is at lunch break or in the office and whether it is about the last Hobbit movie or the simplest algorithm to match names in a phylogeny.

The “purely productive” aspects that can lead to a publications are actually constantly fed by the “less productive” ones (such as chatting around or reading stuff) and I’m always glad that these are not mutually exclusive parts of my day to day PhD life.

Deirdre

My typical day is very similar to those of Adam and Thomas above but, as my PhD is very empirically based I also have bursts of field, outdoor and lab based experiment days so, to be different, here is what a day in the field (doing freshwater work) for me is like:

Typically I get up sinfully early, pile on as many layers as I can and head out in the (hopefully preloaded) van for a long drive to the field site with my field buddy of the day.

We’d spend anything from 2- 4 hours at the different sites collecting algae and invertebrate samples from our cages, usually pausing for a slightly soggy cheese sandwich in the middle or to chat to curious a passer-by. On clear weather days this can be lovely and you see all sorts of beautiful country and wildlife but the rain makes everything take twice as long- especially when you need to see below the water surface. Not all bad though, on one of these rainy cold days our bedraggled selves were invited in for tea and scones to one of the lakeside houses. Then it’s a long drive back, trying to do some water filtering and sample sorting on the winding country roads. Usually, depending how late we get back, then there is the unloading of the van and lugging all of the samples to the cold room for storage.  Fieldwork is great fun though; it lets you see the country and bump into all kinds of creatures and characters.

Authors: Adam Kane, Thomas Guillerme, Deirdre McClean

Photo credit: http://www.blogmarketingacademy.com/which-is-more-secure-the-9-5-job-or-self-employment/

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‘By live voice’ – how to plan for and get through your viva

VE Day

“Make big plans; aim high in hope and work, remembering that a noble, logical diagram once recorded will not die, but long after we are gone be a living thing, asserting itself with ever-growing insistence.” Daniel Burnham

The viva or thesis defence is a daunting obstacle. It’s built up so much that you feel as if your previous three years of work hinge on how you perform for one morning/afternoon. Despite all the reassurances I was offered I was hugely nervous before it. That said, some of the advice I received meant I wasn’t flying blind and could anticipate some of the questions.

It really is a help to have had some of your chapters published. It means two or three other academics have evaluated your ideas and thought them good enough for publication. This is not to say your examiners will ignore these parts, but remember they’re making sure you could perform as an academic and this is strong proof that you could.

Before the day, make a copy of the thesis you submitted and bring it with you to the viva. Have the pages with your figures on it highlighted. These sections are typically big discussion points because they capture the essence of your results. Read over it a couple of days beforehand too, but not the day before, keep that as a buffer to relax.

In terms of structure, the viva panel consists of an external examiner, an internal examiner and the chair. The extern is someone in your field but outside of your university. It is typically stipulated that they cannot have published with you or your supervisor so as to avoid bias. The intern comes from your department and has some knowledge of your field and again has not published with you. The extern takes the lead in asking the questions. The chair is there to make sure everyone keeps a civil tongue in their mouths and the whole event comes to a close after a reasonable time. A typical viva will last three hours.

The aim of the viva is to ensure you are capable of functioning as an academic, I’ve heard it being described as the ‘gateway into the scholarly community’. The expectation is firstly, that the work is mostly your own and secondly, that you have an appreciation of where your thesis fits in with the field at large. This means the questions you’re asked come at two levels, the specific and the general. You are the author so you’re best placed to know the specifics. If you have been helped with some aspect, such as the statistics, make sure you’ve an understanding of why it was done. The general questions are posed to test that you’re widely read in the area. So one question I had was ‘If I could ask God any question about vulture biology what would it be?’The tone of the viva should one of a scholarly discussion. Your examiners are not there to chew you up and spit you out again.

Recognise that your thesis is not the final word on the subject, admit to its shortcomings, and realise it could be improved upon. You can engage in civil debate if there’s a point of difference but don’t get argumentative. You may be asked, in hindsight what would you have done differently?

A good thesis supervisor will know that your work is good enough to get you through a viva with relative ease. Any significant problems will likely have been flagged well in advance. So despite all of your fears coming up to it, you’ll know you’re good enough to walk through those scholarly gates.

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This post drew on my own experience and the advice offered by the presenters of the BES Webinar ‘Surviving the viva’.

Author: Adam Kane, @P1zPalu, kanead[at]tcd.ie

Photo credit: dailymail.co.uk

 

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On the writing of a PhD thesis

writing“Writing a [thesis] is an adventure. To begin with it is a toy and an amusement. Then it becomes a mistress, then it becomes a master, then it becomes a tyrant. The last phase is that just as you are about to be reconciled to your servitude, you kill the monster and fling him to the public.” Winston Churchill

I’ve just finished my PhD thesis and thought I’d share some of my opinions on how best to go about writing one. But before we get there I’d like to express my skepticism of the value of writing a thesis as a means to evaluate a budding scientist. I don’t know of any papers in journals that run over a 100 pages but classically this is what was expected of us at PhD level. It’s rare that a scientist writes a monograph. Instead we compose pieces of research that can be explained in around 10 pages. Scientists use mathematics and statistics to make our points, in that way our numbers do the talking so we can afford to be succinct. This is in contrast to students of the arts who typically draw on argument and rhetoric in their works building to a singular point or thesis! But that’s irrelevant to this topic because you still have to write one and many departments are quite flexible with their definition of thesis.

So my first piece of advice is write chapters with the aim of publishing them. You’re training to be a scientist and papers are your currency so keep that in mind. Three or four data chapters with a general introduction and discussion seem to be the way to go. If you have this approach you’ll be able to finish up parts long before the deadline. If you can get papers published, all the better, a peer-reviewed chapter looks very well and will be an improved piece of work for having gone through the process. The final body should be a coherent whole but these are not book chapters in a story. That said be aware of how you want to frame the whole thing.

Try to be concise; it’ll be easier for you to write, easier for your examiners to correct and more attractive to anyone else who wants to read it. There may be some work you did over the course of your PhD that has to get the chop to achieve this.

There’s no problem in seeking help. Science is meant to be collaborative, even more so today. In 2012 only 11% of all papers were single authored. You’ll be able to get much better chapters if you include people who can add a bulwark to any of your weaknesses. Just make sure you do the bulk of the work and properly credit your collaborators where necessary.

Give some thought to the program you’ll use to write up the project. MS Word isn’t the only way. I found assembling the whole thing in LaTeX went quite smoothly because it’s specifically made for writing technical documents. The downside was it was difficult for others to comment on it. There are ways to do this but I was a novice at the time.

Step back from the cult of the busy too. I found giving myself a break from the write up helped me come up with a much better frame for my discussion.

Start early, don’t write much, aim for papers, and use LaTeX. Simple. How’s that for concise?

(The contents of this post are subject to change after my thesis defence)

Author: Adam Kane, @P1zPalu, kanead[at]tcd.ie
Photo credit: http://centrum.org/2014/08/creative-nonfiction-workshop-nov-6-9/

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Join us!

Uncle_Sam_(pointing_finger)It’s that time of year again at EcoEvo@TCD where we start looking for people to apply for Irish Research Council fellowships to come and join us as postdocs or PhD students. These awards are open to anyone, regardless of nationality. Details can be found here(PhD funding) and here (postdoc funding).

But why would you want to join us? I can talk (type?) at length about this but maybe the best people to ask are the students  and postdocs we already have working here. So here are their comments instead!

Thomas Guillerme @TGuillerme

Supervisor: Natalie Cooper (Zoology)

As a French student, starting a PhD in this department was made really easy by the people working here. Not only the academic work and projects are really exciting, but also the social part of the department makes work really easy going and fun.

Deirdre McClean @deirdremclean1

Supervisor: Ian Donohue (Zoology)

I can’t recommend the zoology department enough as a place to do a PhD! This is largely due to the great diversity of projects going on and the close relationships between staff and students. Collaboration is greatly encouraged and there is so much opportunity for this through NERD club, tea breaks and pub trips!  We have a really nice mix of empirical and theoretical projects meaning that we get really different and interesting perspectives on our work, which I think has been great in my development as a scientist.  Being in a small department has a lot of advantages and it means I always find so much support from my supervisor, other PhD students and other staff. Because of the friendly atmosphere and the variety of research groups and backgrounds, lunchtimes, tea breaks and pub visits provide great opportunities for getting input on your work, coming up with new ideas and having debates! There is also a lot of opportunity for teaching, outreach and collaborating with other groups/departments. The campus here is beautiful and right in the centre of town so it’s a really nice place to work and socialize too!

Shane Mc Guinness @S_Mc_G

Supervisor: Anna Davies (Geography)

Without the support, funding and independence provided by IRC funding, my amibitions to study endangered species conservation and human development in Africa would not have been realised. In addition, the increasing integration of the School of Natural Sciences makes this a truly interdisciplinary environment to work in.

Karen Loxton @LoxtonKaren

Supervisor: Celia Holland (Zoology)

From fantastic supervisors to technicians who seem able to solve any problem, the Zoology Dept. has been an amazing place to study for a PhD. Staff are generous with their time and expertise and the seminars and EcoEvo group are a great way to keep up to date with research outside your own. The diversity of projects within the department ensures that pub conversations are always an opportunity to learn something new and interesting.

Kevin Healy @healyke

Supervisor: Andrew Jackson (Zoology)

So far I have really enjoyed doing my PhD in the Zoology department, mostly this is due to the fact that we get the opportunity to work on loads of cool collaboration projects (right now I’m working on a T.rex paper due to a bet in the pub on who could have a dinosaur paper first) but also because there is a very relaxed social vibe to the department as well. I think my development as a scientist over the last two years is also really down to the amount of support from not just my supervisor but all the other members of staff, whether its from our NERD club meetings, going to conferences or just a lively debate at lunch. It also helps that the department is right in the middle of Dublin so there’s plenty of pubs to continue work after 5!

Sive Finlay @SiveFinlay

Supervisor: Natalie Cooper (Zoology)

The Zoology Department is a lovely home for a PhD student. There is a very relaxed, friendly atmosphere with plenty of opportunities to mix with and learn from staff, postdocs and fellow students. We’re a relatively small department but that is definitely to our advantage because you get to know people from diverse research backgrounds and you’re not lost in the anonymity of being yet another student in a large research lab. In the past few years there’s been increased collaboration and integration across the School of Natural Sciences through our NERD club meetings, postdoc talks, weekly seminars from invited speakers and via the EcoEvo blog, all of which are great for getting out of the bubble of being stuck in your own project. There are also plenty of opportunities to get involved in teaching, collaborative projects, fun outreach events and of course a healthy amount of socialising… What’s more, Trinity is a great university with a beautiful campus in the centre of the city – not a bad place to work!

Seán Kelly @seankelly999

Supervisors: Nicola Marples and Dave Kelly (Zoology)

The Zoology Department and the School of Natural Sciences are full of friendly and welcoming students and staff from a great variety of backgrounds. I never fail to find support or advice on my PhD project when it’s needed, whether from my supervisors, other staff or students. The diversity of expertise within the department is a real asset; one that is readily available to you. Integration within and between the various departments is ever increasing and collaboration is greatly encouraged. Lunchtime conversations often turn into lively debates and sometimes lead to new collaborative projects. There’s ample opportunity for teaching experience, group learning and social outreach, as well as socialising, of course.

Sarah Hearne @SarahVHearne

Supervisor: Ian Donohue (Zoology)

I was nervous moving to a new university to study a new field of biology, but I shouldn’t have been. The department is incredibly friendly and welcoming and there is a great spirit of collaboration. This isn’t a place to hide away for three years, it’s a place where discussions are had or ideas spawned over a pint in the pub or during a lunch break. People share their successes and commiserate over failures. Some great science is done as well!

Adam Kane @P1zPalu

Supervisor: Andrew Jackson (Zoology)

The Zoology department has a great group of scientists who are interested in each other’s research which makes for excellent collaborative opportunities. The best advertisement I can give for it is that I don’t dread getting out of bed on a Monday morning.

Katherine Webster

Supervisor: Ian Donohue (Zoology)

Being part of the dynamic and interactive EcoEvo group in the School of Natural Sciences has greatly enhanced my experience at Trinity as a postdoc. From the students to faculty, you gain valuable feedback into your own research while learning about new ideas that expand your own perspectives. Being in Dublin and walking the hallowed grounds of Trinity College certainly adds to the experience!

If you’re interested and have a member of staff with appropriate research interests in mind, please get in touch! Contacts and research profiles of staff can be found here. Note that, unfortunately, the application success rate is fairly low and the applications themselves take a bit of effort to fill in for both the applicant and the academic who supports the application. Because of this we won’t be able to support every person that contacts us. But we promise to be realistic about your chances of getting funding. This is judged on your CV, the project, and the fit of the project to the chosen supervisor. The call opens in November and the deadline is January.

Author: Natalie Cooper, ncooper[at]tcd.ie, @nhcooper123

Image: Wikimedia commons

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Finding a PhD

phd032410s

Undergraduate and Masters students often come to me for advice about how to find a PhD position. I know quite a few students read this blog so I thought I’d share the advice here. Hopefully some of it is helpful! Note this is aimed at people in the UK and Irish system who often go straight from undergraduate to a PhD (or do a brief one year Masters course in between the two). But many points are relevant to the US system too.

1) First make sure you definitely want to do a PhD!

This is really important and I think it’s something that very few of us ever bother to do. The thesis whisperer has some amazing advice on this, and many other subjects related to PhDs, so I won’t repeat too much here.  (See http://thesiswhisperer.com/2011/11/07/should-i-do-a-phd/)

Doing a PhD can be an amazing experience, but it can also be extremely frustrating. Often it’s amazing and frustrating at the same time! You will work long hours for several years with very few rewards and low pay. Then once you finish your PhD things get even trickier – there’s no job security until you reach the Lecturer/Assistant Professor level which generally won’t happen until you’re at least 30, and getting that lecturer’s job is extremely difficult as there are far more qualified PhD students than there are postdoc jobs and lecturer jobs. So to succeed you need to work really hard and also have good luck. It’s good to aim high, but it’s also worth having an alternative career plan in mind for if the whole academia thing falls through. So before you start the long road of potential academic misery, make sure you have a really clear reason WHY you want to do a PhD. If it’s because you love research and can’t imagine doing anything else then great! If it’s because you need one for your chosen career (within or outside academia), again great! But if it’s because you don’t really know what else to do after graduating, or because you want to be a student for a few more years, then I’d recommend researching other options.

2) Advertised PhDs.
These PhDs generally already have funding and a planned research project. You just need to apply. Applications are usually fairly simple, just a CV and cover letter plus a couple of references (usually two). For the cover letter, make sure you describe exactly how you meet the criteria in the job description. Check out our earlier blog posts for help with CV writing. For referees try to include academic referees. Your project supervisor would be a good person to ask, followed by the head of department or your tutor. If the position is in aquatic ecology and you did particularly well in your aquatic ecology module you could ask the lecturer who taught you. Make sure you ask people before you put them down as references.

PhDs are advertised in many places including:

Twitter (with #phd or #jobs)
www.findaphd.com
ECOLOG Archives
Evoldir
University websites

Twitter can be particularly useful for this, as lecturers often tweet about positions in their lab and retweet adverts from other lecturers.

3) Non-advertised PhDs.

Not all PhD positions are advertised. Sometimes this is just because the person taking on students already has someone in mind or a good pool of undergraduate students to choose from. More often though this is because although the lecturer is perfectly happy to have a new PhD student they don’t have any funding. In these circumstances you need to apply for your own funding.

There are a couple of options when it comes to funding. The simplest are “personal” awards or studentships. These are PhD scholarships given to individual students based on various criteria – usually the quality of the student and of the proposed project. The other option is that a supervisor may include PhD student funding on a larger grant they are applying for. In this case the responsibility for the application rests with the supervisor. For personal awards the responsibility rests with you.

To apply for your own funding you first need to find a possible supervisor. You should already have an idea of the kind of project you’d like to work on, so you can use the internet to search for supervisors who might fit your interests. Ask around your current lecturers to see if they know of anyone suitable. You can narrow the search by also thinking about the place you’d like to study at. Once you’ve identified a possible supervisor, send them a brief email with your qualifications (attach your CV), what you’d like to work on, why you’d like to work with them and ask if there would be any opportunities in their group. Also mention that you’d be happy to apply for funding (if you have a funding body in mind mention this too). Don’t do this as a bulk email; make sure it’s tailored to the person in question. Also make sure it’s brief; most people today read emails on mobile phones so long emails are annoying.

If they say yes then you can work with them to prepare a proposal. Don’t get discouraged if you don’t get replies or if you get lots of negative replies. It’s not personal, it’s just that people are busy and some already have as many PhD students as they can handle!

One quick tip on choosing a supervisor (again thesiswhisperer has lots of advice for this): don’t just focus on the senior people. It’s exciting to work with a famous scientist, but more often than not they are extremely busy and their groups are hard to get into. More junior people are often given money for a PhD student or two when they start a new job. They also tend to have more time.

4) Where to apply for funding.

The best thing to do is to talk to your potential supervisor about funding options. There are fewer and fewer options these days but each university usually has some kind of scheme, and scholarly societies often give out scholarships. What you are eligible for will depend on the project, your nationality and the country you wish to do your PhD in. For example, EU citizens can get funding from Marie Curie/European Commission if you do a PhD outside of your home country (and in the EU). Students of any nationality can apply for funding from the Irish Research Council to do a PhD in Ireland. Students of any nationality can also apply for a Trinity Postgraduate Scholarship or Ussher Scholarship from Trinity College Dublin if they wish to study at TCD.

5) DO NOT accept a PhD with little or no funding.

Some people are so keen to do a PhD they’ll accept one with little or no funding. This is a terrible idea (unless you’re independently wealthy!). You will need to pay fees (at TCD these are currently nearly €6000 a year) and need money to live on. Many people try to manage this with a part time job, but if you’re working you’re not doing your PhD, which should be a full time job in itself. And remember for every extra year doing your PhD you need to pay fees. This doesn’t even consider where the money for lab materials, conference travel or equipment is going to come from. So make sure you check the status of the funding before you say yes!

6) Qualifications needed for PhD positions.

If you only have an undergraduate degree then you need a 2.1 or 1st class degree. Remember you’ll be competing with lots of people when you apply so this is just a guide. You can get a PhD with a 2.1 BUT if all the other applicants have 1st class degrees you will struggle. I personally would prefer a student with a 1st for their project and a 2.1 overall, to a student with a 2.1 for their project but a 1st overall.

If you have a Masters then you may get a PhD with a grade lower than a 2.1 but only if you got a good grade on your Masters (preferably a Distinction). Again, your mark for the project component is the most important.

If your qualifications are unusual make sure you explain them. Also make sure you explain them if you are applying to a foreign university which may use a different system. Percentage marks often help here. If you know where you ranked in your class include this information too. If applying for positions in the UK, Irish students should highlight the fact that Irish degrees are 4 years long thus almost the equivalent of a degree and a Masters in in UK.

7) Should I do a Masters or work experience?

Masters courses can be great but they are also expensive and may be of limited benefit in some cases. If you don’t feel ready for a PhD, or are unsure you want to commit to a PhD, a Masters may be more sensible than jumping straight in to a PhD. Also if your grades in undergrad were not very impressive, doing a Masters and getting a Distinction or Merit can override these issues. However, if you’re certain you want a PhD and your project and overall grades were good at undergrad there’s no reason you shouldn’t apply for PhDs straight away. One solution might be to apply for Masters courses and then pull out if you get a PhD (check your contract so you don’t end up losing any money). Masters in Research (MRes) courses may be a particularly good idea as they involve several research projects so allow you to decide if you really like research or not. MSc courses also include taught elements, so these are good if you want to learn more about a specialised topic. These also end with a long research project.

If you want to get a field or conservation based PhD, then work experience may be a better option than doing a Masters. This may still be expensive as most of these positions are unpaid, but then you have the option of volunteering for some of the time and then working to support yourself. Work experience can be Research Assistant positions at universities, internships at conservation charities etc. The Institute of Zoology take interns every year, as do the IUCN. There are field projects on meerkats and baboons run out of Cambridge University that take volunteers each year. Also search ECOLOG and EvolDir (see links in 2 above) for other field assistant positions. Alternatively, if you have a potential supervisor in mind you could email them and offer your services. Or offer to help at a local university so you can live at home and save money. Research Assistant jobs are a great way to learn about PhDs and research from PhD students and researchers you interact with, however, you have to be prepared to work independently as people often don’t have much time to supervise interns.

That’s my advice! Feel free to add alternative advice if you have any. And good luck finding a PhD!

Author

Natalie Cooper

nhcooper123

ncooper[at]tcd.ie

Photo credit

PhD comics