Speaker 1: Hello, my beautiful PhD friends. So today we're going to talk about the top five things that you should do before your PhD. If you're new to this channel, please remember to subscribe and hit that bell notification because I'm going to talk about everything I've learned doing a PhD, doing my 10 years of postdoc, academia in general, and I want to share all of the dirty little horrible secrets with you. So subscribe and let's get over to the top five things that you should do or consider before your PhD. One of the first self-help books that I ever read was Stephen Covey's The Seven Habits of Highly Successful People, and I read it way after my PhD. But one of them in there is all about starting with the end in mind. Now what that means is like, why are you doing a PhD? It's very easy to be on this path of least resistance throughout academia, be like, I did undergrad, okay, I don't really want to go into the real world and get a job, so I'll do a master's and then a PhD. But that only causes you to focus on the very short term, like that next step, rather than where are you heading, where are you going, what's the end goal? And so to everyone, I always recommend starting with the end in mind. Like, why are you doing a PhD? And I like to sort of write down the top three reasons for pretty much all of my big projects. Is it to, of course doing a PhD, it's to make the world a better place, yes, we all get it. And I know that in some applications you have to say that, but whatever. You have to write down the top three things. I'll give you one of them can be like, save the world, cure cancer, help renewable energy become more efficient. You know, like, yeah, that's good, that's why you're doing it. But dig a little bit deeper. Like, what is it under that that really matters? And I think for me at the time, it was about pushing myself. Like, it was really like a personal challenge. It was really about, and you know, maybe I did think that I did want to become a professor and become an academic in the more general sense. But who knows, like that changed throughout the course of my postdoc, at least where I was like, oh, this is absolutely terrible, no thanks. But yeah, have a think about what you want to achieve. Is it that you want to become a academic? You know, is it that you really want to sort of solve a particular problem? Have you got a personal connection to a problem? That's one thing I see, especially around the health field PhDs is people say, oh, you know, my family was affected by this and I want to help solve it. And that's kind of probably one of the best motivations I've ever seen for doing a PhD. Like, that's a deep personal connection to that topic and doing a PhD. And I think that's fantastic. So yeah, it's really about finding that purpose and also really understanding what you're doing with it. If it's to get into industry, if it's to escape academia and go to do something else, what's important throughout your PhD to get you to that end point? And I think having a list of those and reviewing them once a year throughout your PhD, I think will just keep you motivated and in the right direction. Yes, get that sorted. The second thing I recommend you do is speak to the people who you are closest to. Now I'm talking about your best friends and your family. They are going to witness potentially one of the hardest things that you are going to have to go through. And really, you really do need their support throughout this entire three to four, five-year process. Speak to them and let them know, I guess, what a PhD is. Not many people understand what a PhD is outside of academia. Have that conversation that it is challenging, that it's going to take a lot of time, that you're going to be stressed, that it's full of uncertainty, that it involves a lot of writing in the lab. Sometimes my family used to say stuff like, oh, so you're still in education or you're still in school. And it's like, no, I'm not in school. This is like the hardest thing that you can achieve in the education system. And that's why I'm doing it. It's about research. And I think having an understanding and buy-in from the people closest to you means that when you are going through those really tough times, you're going to have the support networks around you that, first of all, understand what you're going through, at least at an academic level. And they, I guess, just will not try to persuade you to not do it. Or they'll be supportive but understand that it's a challenging three to four years. And yeah, speak to those people. Be open and honest. And also let them know that you'll probably be asking them for their support. And these are the best ways that you can support me. You know, like if I come home sad, you know, I just need someone to speak to and someone to listen to me. If I need to spend a weekend in the lab or I need to travel for conferences, these are the things that I'd really like for you to help with, you know. Especially if you've got young children, speaking to your partner and them understanding your times where you're going to be less available than you normally are and understanding that is going to be super important. So yeah, speak to the people around you. Get buy-in from those people. Let them understand. Let them into the world of academia. And I think you'll lay a good foundation for that support network if and when you need it throughout your PhD. This is one I wish I had done way earlier. So let's just say you've sorted out your PhD. You know which group you're going into. You've been accepted. You're excited for that first day. I would reach out to people in that group, either online or go into the lab and speak to them and just sort of ask the questions that no one really wants to ask, like how is this supervisor? How is the academic? What sort of things don't you like about this group? What things do you like about this group? How does this group compare to other groups you know about? Those things, and it isn't necessarily to put you off, but it's kind of the better the devil you know. Like if you're going in with knowing how things work, how things operate, what to expect. So for example, like every academic has a reputation. Believe it or not, like everyone does. And the higher up you get, the more well-known your personality traits become. You know, is this person normally grumpy? So for example, I knew that one of my supervisors, about once a month, he would just blow up for no reason. Like the project was going well, but he had to get all like alpha male on me. And he started slamming the desk. And I actually said to him, I was like, this meeting is over. You cannot speak to me like that. I'm off. And I left, I canceled the meeting. So like if I'd known that, I guess I would have been prepared. And I always told people after that like, oh yeah, this supervisor, this is what he does. But most of the time, he was a lovely person. He just wanted to be loved. Another supervisor that I had was just, he fall asleep in meetings. Like he was an absolute workaholic and you would be presenting your work and he would fall asleep, like literally fall asleep. The strange thing was he was always able to ask the most sensible questions when he woke up. So I have no idea how that happened. Another supervisor that I worked with, he had no interest in paperwork. Like you would send him a paper and be like, is this okay? And he would say yes. And it wasn't okay. And you'd send it to someone else and they'd be like, it's full of these mistakes, this. And so I couldn't rely on that supervisor for giving me reasonable feedback about that paper. And so yeah, getting to know these quirks of people, getting to understand, I guess, a little bit of the dynamics of the group. What are the group meetings like? Are they nice? Does the supervisor pick and bully people? Like that's one of the biggest things is, academics are lovely until you put them in academia. Then it's super competitive, their egos get inflated. And yeah, like it can result in the worst aspects of that person coming out, which is bullying, which is kind of talking down to people, demanding things. And remember, these people don't own your life, right? They own a very small fraction of it. And there's so much more out of that, but they will guilt you into coming into the lab. These are the worst parts, but for the most part, these people are nice. So yes, my point is speak to the current or just graduated students from that group and ask the tricky questions. Just so you're prepared and just so you're able to navigate the tricky situations that may arise in that group. Okay, the fourth thing is all about asking the silly questions. Now, what I mean about that is, when you get to the stage where you're doing a PhD, people assume you're clever and you are clever, but you've never done the PhD before, right? So there are things that you are not gonna know. I did not know how to read a paper properly. Like, what is an abstract? How do I do these? How do I navigate a paper? Like, what's the most important bit, the heading? The abstract, do I read more? Like, what's important about that? How to write a paper, you know? All of the different terminology. And also, there's gonna be very, very field-specific terminology that you're gonna have to get to grips with throughout your PhD. And early on, there's no, if someone says something and you're like, what on earth is that? You know, I would just say, oh, what does that mean? For example, I had an industry project about explosives and they were talking about ANFO all the time. And I just, I was so embarrassed and I was like, oh God, surely I should know this. No, so I'd never done it before. Of course I wasn't meant to know it, but I didn't ask the question. Took me months to figure out what they were talking about. And it was ammonium nitrate fuel oil, which is like the main thing I was doing. And I was like, oh Jesus, okay. So ask the silly questions and Google the bare basics of academia. Like, I'll do videos on them or in the comments below, let me know what you'd like for me to answer. Like, maybe I'll do a silly question thread and Q and answer video. I think that'd be kind of cool. But yeah, ask the silly questions. What's a paper? What does a PhD actually mean? What does a conference presentation mean? What's PhD by present? Like, just do all of this research and reach out and ask those silly questions because they're not silly. You're not expected to know it. It's the first time you've ever done something like this, even though you've got to this first rung of the PhD ladder. Yeah, just don't worry about it. Ask those questions and it'll just, yeah, just make everything so much nicer. And the fifth thing that I recommend you do before a PhD is lay the foundations of good health. I did not do any exercise when I was younger. And, you know, I think mental health and physical health really go hand in hand. And before a PhD, it's your time to really focus on you and your mental health and your physical health. I never used to like running, but now I run three times a week. And I just notice all of the awesome sort of benefits seep over into other parts of my life. I'm more tolerant, I'm more relaxed. I'm happier, definitely. And just look at laying the foundations. Now, I'm not saying that you're gonna be able to keep these hobbies and habits up as you go through your PhD, but at least laying the first foundation. And if you can, turn it into a habit so that you've got something else other than your PhD. You know, community focused health things like community running groups or community gym fitness, like that sort of stuff is fantastic because not only do you get the health benefits, but you get the community component as well. And that really will help you throughout your entire PhD if you continue to do it. So yeah, lay those foundations, eat well, get into the habit of eating well, get in the habit of sleeping. It's amazing the power of sleep, right? I know that we get into this thing like, oh, I only slept for like three hours last night. I'm a beast. And you're not a beast, you're an idiot. Get some sleep, relax, make sure that you get in the habits and lay in the foundations of sleep, eating well, and a little bit of exercise. And I really feel like that will pay dividends throughout your PhD if you do your PhD work and then go, you know what, I'm gonna go for a run or I'm gonna go to this community group or I'm gonna just eat well tonight. Or, you know what, tonight I'm gonna sleep well because I know it really benefits me. And so laying the foundations before and getting used to what you enjoy and don't enjoy in terms of exercise before your PhD will mean that you're ready and raring. And look, it's all about protecting the capacity to do work, right? Sometimes when we're stressed, we wanna do more when in fact we should do less. Like do less work but do something else, like go for a run. Don't worry about that paper today. You know, go and do something else. That's what you should focus on and that's what the foundational component just before a PhD should allow you to do is focus on you and your mental health. So there we are, there are my five top things you should do before you start a PhD. Let me know in the comments what you think. And also, I wanna let you know that I have got a podcast. We've just recorded and I'm going to release today the 100th, however many that is, 100th episode of P-POP, Publish, Perish, or Podcast. I'll put a link to it in the descriptions. Yeah, it's been going for about three and a half years. It's me and two friends and we talk about academia, early career research stuff, and you follow our careers all the way from when I was a postdoc to now. So yeah, go check that out. I'm really proud of it that we've managed to do 100 episodes, it's just incredible. So go check that out, that'd be awesome. Cool, well, have a lovely day, week, month, whatever it is, before you watch the next video and I shall see you in the next video.