Speaker 1: Today I'm going to answer the most Googled questions about PhDs. I've got my cup of peppermint tea in my Newcastle mug where I've got my PhD from. So let's go. All right then, let's have a look. Let's just start with the broad one. Why is a PhD so hard? A PhD is so hard for so many different reasons. Ultimately, it comes down to the fact that you are now doing something you've never done before. So in undergrad, you get good at doing exams. Whereas during a PhD, you get good at failing a lot. And that failure seems like you'll never get good at doing a PhD. But finding new knowledge is about persisting through hardship. And there's no doubt that it really reveals kind of the true nature of the world to you. In the fact that, you know, you don't get a linear response from the amount of effort you put in. There's things like tipping points, where you have to do a certain number of things before your PhD works. You know, you have to reach that tipping point. Whereas in undergraduate, it's like, here we are. Here's all of the exams. Pass those and you're good. It's linear. It's predictable. A PhD is not predictable. Things go wrong. And I think the number one thing you really need is persistence to get through a PhD. That's why it's so hard. No one tells you that. And you think that it's just going to be like effort in, result out. It is not like that. All right. Why do PhDs take so long? Well, a PhD takes so long because I think in the US, you've got exams that you need to do. So you need to get those out of the way first. That can be like three years, I think. But in Australia, where I did my PhD, they're about four years. It really takes that long to convince other experts in the field that you have done enough work to be admitted into the PhD degree. And so it is about sort of building up a base layer in that first year. It is about understanding a field, finding the gaps, all of that sort of stuff. In the second year, that's when people talk about the second year lull. So you get over that excitement of it being new. And then you have to start doing stuff. And that's where things really start going wrong. That's when you start failing. You start realizing that other people are doing something similar. You have to find a research gap. You have to navigate all of the really boring stuff as well within a university. Where do you get your printing done? Who do you speak to if you want access to a certain instrument or some equipment? Who is the right person to speak to about certain problems? All of that takes a long time. Your third year is really where things start working well enough, it should be at least, that you start seeing that kind of light at the end of the tunnel. And then in your fourth year, that's when you're writing up. It can take like six months to write a thesis. I wrote mine in about two to three months, I think. But I had all of the data collected before then, so it was just writing. So it takes a long time because there's so many steps you need to go through to get a PhD, building a foundational knowledge, sort of discovering how a PhD actually works and how research actually works, finding the thing that does actually mean you'll get your PhD, refining the results, collecting the data, writing it up, and then having to convince other people that you've done enough work to actually get a PhD. That's why it takes so bloody long. Cup of tea time. Okay, are PhDs worth it? Interesting. Are PhDs worth it? So this is very individual, it comes down to the person, but I would say for a lot of people, yes, PhDs are worth it for what they want to get out of it. I did my PhD because, first of all, it was an easy visa to come to Australia, but secondly, it really sort of satisfied the curiosity in me for doing that next step, for finding out something new, for really pushing the envelope of myself and what I found out about the world. So yeah, it's overall worth it. I think a lot of people go into a PhD without understanding what they want to do at the end of it. And that means it's more of a risk that your PhD won't be worth it for you in the end. So you have to go in understanding what it gets you, where it's going to get you, and what you're going to do after it. A lot of people, I think, do kind of go through this stage at the end of their PhD if they haven't thought about it, where they don't think a PhD is worth it. But over time, once you find a new path, a new career, a new sort of passion in life, you do realize that all of the skills you've built up from your PhD really do help you moving forward. So there's a few people I know that are many years after their PhD and they're still using the skills, the soft skills, the hard skills, the analytical skills that they've built up in their current career. It's being valuable to them right now. But early on, it wasn't easy to see that that was the end result of their PhD. So is it worth it for a lot of people? Probably yes. But you have to go in with your eyes wide open. And that's what this channel is all about. So subscribe, go check out my other videos and I'll help make sure academia works for you. Go check it out. Does my PhD supervisor like me? Okay. So it's a really common question among PhD students. Does my PhD supervisor like me? And that's because PhD supervisors are strange. They are satisfying a load of different sort of requirements. They've got the university pressures. They've got the academic pressures. They've got the student pressures. They've got the teaching pressures. They need to get funding. And all of this means that quite often PhD supervisors are a little bit mean or a little bit mysterious to their PhD students. And that's because it's not really their main job. You know, supervising is one part of their job. And also, I think as you get further into academia, you do become jaded. You do become a little bit of what the system selects for, which is a little bit tough, a little bit rough around the edges, a little bit distant, a little bit bossy sometimes. Definitely sort of like people that get that far in academia tend to have quite a big ego because they believe that the cream rises to the top and they are the ones that have been selected. When in fact, there's a huge amount of luck that goes in to get in an academic position to the point where you're in a tenured position in a university. So there's no doubt that a PhD supervisor can be quite a hard nut to crack. Although saying that, I've had PhD supervisors who I've got on well with and we've talked, we've chatted, we've talked like normal people. And so it really does depend on your supervisor. But I think this question is asked a lot because it's not obvious when a PhD supervisor likes you. They're not always saying, you're doing great, you're doing the best. In fact, it's the opposite. They're quite often always criticising your work, which means that it can mean, oh no, they don't like me. But of course, academia trains them to criticise. It trains them to sort of find flaws and find gaps and find issues. That's how academia moves forward and that can seem like they don't like you when that's not the case in a lot of situations. It's just that they are a product of their training. So this is an interesting question. What PhD is worth getting and what PhD is right for me? There is no one right PhD for anyone. You just have to kind of make a decision on where you are right now. It's best to choose a PhD where you can see yourself persisting through issues because you have a passion for that area, because you have an interest. A lot of people do PhDs, special medical PhDs, because they have been personally affected by the issues they are studying. It's that kind of connection to your PhD that will really help you with that persistence factor that will get you through to the other end. It is tough. It is a really sort of like rollercoaster of a journey. So the right PhD for you is one that you are actually interested in and are interested in discovering more about. But also, once that initial enthusiasm wears off after that first year, is it an area that has got potential to improve your life in the future? I think that's an important sort of like combination of factors, which is, is it interesting to you right now? Will it help you in the future? But also, is the world needing people with that degree? If you can find the overlap of that Venn diagram, I think that is really a great signal that the PhD is right for you. But don't get me wrong, that is not the only way or only reason to do a PhD. There are loads of people doing PhDs just because they are interested in them and they get them and unfortunately get to the other end and it may not be, you know, the dream career they've had. But they're happy they did their PhD because it was genuinely interesting to them and they wanted to find out about this area of the world, of the universe, whatever you want to call it. And some people just do a PhD because they don't know what else to do, which arguably is the worst reason to do a PhD. You have to go in with a bit of a plan. But yeah, the right PhD for you is going to be a completely different PhD for other people. So you do have to dig deep, really understand what motivates you and then find that overlap between what interests you, what will help you in the future and what the world really needs. The last one for today is here. Where to start your PhD? Well, that's really tough. Sometimes we can look at a PhD as this insurmountable mountain and we're looking at it sort of like from the base of the mountain and we're like, wow, we need to get up there. But we're not looking right in front of us. We're not looking at the first handhold and that's where your start is wherever you can. You just start by doing a literature review. You start by finding the gaps, finding sort of like the lay of the land, as it were. You start by looking at the map, I guess, the lay of the land of where the research is right now and importantly, how that relates to your research question and then you just start however you can. You take one step at a time. You move one foot in front of the other until you get to the finish line. So you don't worry necessarily about that big goal at the end, you know, producing a thesis. You just start by iterating through, coming up with a sort of little hypothesis, coming up with an experiment to answer that question and then finding the results, analysing and going over and over that over and over again. I think the human brain will always try to resolve questions. So if you start with a good question, you'll immediately try to resolve it because like unanswered questions will just not settle in your mind. So you start with a question and you start by making little steps towards answering that by designing an experiment and then moving through that process. So there we have it. There were the most Googled questions that I could find on Google and the answers while drinking my lovely peppermint tea. I didn't drink much of it, did I? Because it's still quite warm. So let me know in the comments what your answer would be to any of those questions because it really helps anyone that finds this video and my channel. I thank you for your input and also remember there are more ways that you can engage with me. The first way is to sign up to my newsletter. Head over to andrewstapeton.com.au forward slash newsletter. The link is in the description and 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 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 e-books, the Ultimate Academic Writing Toolkit, as well as the PhD Survival Guide. I've also got the forum, also resource packs for applying for a PhD in grad school. Everything is there to make sure that academia and your PhD works for you. All right then, I'll see you in the next video.