Speaker 1: The first skill that my PhD gave me that I still use today is being comfortable with ambiguity. Not being certain what will happen but giving it a go anyway. Also I think that you get pretty excited by the nonlinear returns of ambiguity and there's no doubt that without that comfort with ambiguity I would not be doing what I'm doing right now and I absolutely love what I do right now so definitely that's a skill that you build up during your PhD and why a lot of people find it very uncomfortable early on because unlike undergraduate where your lectures are laid out for you where you know that these exams are in this place a PhD just says well try some things and let's see what happens. The second really valuable skill is being able to manage upwards. That is manage your supervisors to the point where you understand what they need to hear when they need to hear it and you understand the levels of communications required to keep that a really nice relationship. I think throughout a PhD you start to learn how to manage upwards and this is valuable skills for going forward in the workplace and also just sort of like for yourself you know how to create a comfortable work environment for yourself. This has paid dividends when I was working in a university as a postdoc but also in industry I just knew how to manage you know complicated hierarchical egos that were sitting above me you know so that I could just sort of like have a nice working life. So there's no doubt that managing your supervisors expectations, managing their kind of communication with you, managing what you say to them, how you how you say that to them really really helps. There's no doubt that a PhD really helps with managing upwards. Another skill that I have absolutely loved and used after my PhD is appreciation for serendipity. That is just being comfortable not only with the unknown but also taking advantage of the things that happen out of nowhere. Now some of you may not know this but I started like three or four YouTube channels all at the same time because I understood that some of them would fail, some of them would do okay but maybe only one or two would like really burst off and so I understood that you know you can put the same effort into a load of different activities in exactly the same way but for some reason one thing just really works. It's a combination of things that are just invisible to you I think. It's that luck component of life and so I really think that you know getting used to that feeling and that sort of reality really helps because a PhD you try a load of things, things fail, things do okay and then there's that one thing that kind of just pops up. It rears its head over all of the mess and you go yes that is the thing I want to do my PhD or focus my PhD on because it's working and it's a skill that has been so valuable to me and I'm sure it will be to you too. Another skill is iterative thinking. That is trying something, letting it fail or do whatever it does and then readjusting that thing you're doing until you see a different outcome. That is essentially the process of research. Try something, see what happens, reassess. Try something else, see what happens, reassess and I think a lot of people if you haven't been through that kind of iterative process before over many years like a PhD you can kind of try something, fail and then go oh well whereas you know I think a PhD allows you to try something and then go well okay well that's what the result was from these series of conditions. Let's try it again to see if I can make it better and there's no doubt that that skill and that kind of mindset has really helped over every job that I've ever had. So iterative thinking is certainly a skill that you build through your PhD and it's not something that comes naturally to many people. Maybe this is just me but a skill that I developed definitely during my PhD was the ability to challenge norms. Some places don't like that and I get it but I think just the ability and the kind of confidence to just say I don't understand why we do it this way, why don't we try this, this and this. Like a PhD enables someone to think outside of the box much more and I think they also allow you to feel comfortable challenging what people do and it doesn't work in every job. For example I know a friend of mine went into government and they were talking about how when they started they wanted to change all this stuff but government just doesn't work like that and now they're a little bit more senior. They've got all these young people coming in saying we should change these things. They're like no no this is the system this is just how it works. So that challenging of the norm I think is very healthy. Understanding when you can use it is even healthier and it's something that has enabled me to sort of like help contribute positively wherever I've gone. So thinking outside of the norm and challenging the norms is a skill that PhD students just developed and I think it is very very valuable to employers. Failure, oh friend. A PhD allows you to build the skill to embrace failure. Understanding that failure isn't a permanent condition but the thing is is that many people who haven't done a PhD and essentially a PhD is like fail fail fail fail, little win, oh exciting and that's what our life is like. So we get very comfortable with failure. Many people stop at failure because they think it's a reflection on them, they think it's a reflection on their kind of ability to do something whereas we're like okay we failed let's try again and it's not something that is obvious to first-year PhD students but you know the reason someone is successful is because they found out all the ways that don't work and that's what a PhD really gives you. So that ability to not only embrace failure but also thrive in its presence I think that is something that a PhD really gives you, a great skill. Intrinsic motivation, that is a skill no doubt that PhD students develop. You have to work out why you're doing it for you even if it's just like rage finishing like I think a lot of people do it's just like find something inside you that's not an external motivation to get you through the hard times. Understanding what makes you tick, understanding what allows you to move forward really is a great skill and it's something that not a lot of people develop or they rely on you know external things like money, like prestige all of those things are important but a true kind of PhD sort of skill is the ability to just push on through because of intrinsic motivation. So to be able to develop that, understand it and utilize it is a skill that PhD students develop throughout their time absolutely. All of these skills really fall under the umbrella of endurance and persistence. Persistence is something that PhD students have to have whether or not it's obvious from the beginning, whether or not in the third year you just have to get stuff done but doing little by little every day is something that really works and I think PhD students even if they don't know it early on they figure out that that's what it takes. Doing little bits of writing, doing research, doing analysis, doing you know experimental design, whatever it is just doing a little bit every day really helps momentum wise and also just to getting to the finish line. Some days you put in so little effort that you just feel like it's not going anywhere but you have to remember that that little effort builds up if you put in that little effort over a long period of time like the duration of a PhD. So that persistence we understand works and it's a skill that I think I am so grateful that I built up. Learning how you learn. That is a skill that I think we develop partly in undergrad because we just have to jam loads of information into our minds. However in a PhD you now no longer have the structure of a course and you're much free in what you can read, how you read it, the resources you can gather to learn and that is what I think has led to me being a lifelong learner. I am always learning new things. I'm learning to sew, I made this jumper, I made the t-shirt that I'm wearing, I love to paint, I've done watercolor stuff, at the moment I'm learning Farsi, I've learned Spanish in the past. I just love learning new things and I think that ability to learn how you learn throughout a PhD is such a valuable skill. This is by far the number one most valuable skill that I have ever learned and refined during my PhD and that is public speaking. Public speaking, the ability to be persuasive to a large amount of people and by large amount of people sometimes it's like a conference room full of people and other times I've spoken to like a thousand people on a stage at National Science Week. So it really is about being comfortable being in public and speaking. It is something that first of all I've come to enjoy but also it is an absolute skill when you're in any sort of job. Persuasion is certainly part of public speaking, being confident and all of these things means that you know it is just a powerful skill in nearly every circumstance. So getting comfortable reporting on your research to your supervisor, putting your hand up for those more uncomfortable things like symposia or conferences and oral presentations in your department, all of those things will help you no doubt. So if you're not a confident public speaker a PhD is a great place to practice a lot and just like a stand-up comedian I think the more you do it the more it just becomes like your home and like super comfortable because you're in charge. You kind of, when you're giving a public talk you kind of realize ah okay yeah I get to decide all of what's going on because I'm the one speaking so it's not scary. It's kind of, at least for me, something I came to love. Let me know if that's true for you. So there we have it. There are the 10 little-known skills that I think a PhD gives you that you can use in real life forever afterwards. Let me know in the comments which ones you would add and also remember there are more ways to engage with me. The first way is to sign up to my newsletter. Head over to andrewstapleton.com.au forward slash newsletter. The link is in the description. When you sign up you'll get five emails over about two weeks everything from the tools I've used, the podcast I've been on, how to write the perfect abstract, my TEDx talk and more. It's exclusive content available for free so go sign up now and also go check out academiainsider.com. That's where I've got my ebooks, the ultimate academic writing toolkit, the PhD survival guide, I've got the application resource pack for PhDs and grad school, I've got the insider forum, a blog growing out there as well and it's all there to make academia work for you. Alright then, I'll see you in the next video.