How to survive your PhD

Tips and triks

Record: Male: 2:20:56 (1996)Female: 2:38:22 (2001)

Midnight sunmarathon

Our marathon

• 1980-1981: 42 %

• 2002-2003: 76 %

• Average race time: 5.5 years

• Lately possibly less: 5.1 years (class of 2011)

Start Defence

What is a PhD? / Who are you?

• Research? • You are a scientist• Original, extensive, autonomous/limited assistance?• Creative

• Training, “school”?• You are a student• Original, but not necessarily groundbreaking• Organized, not creative?• Skill development for future career • Learning within a research community

Your tasks along the way

• Tasks: Reading - Doing - Writing

• Keep the passion

• Read and learn

• Network

• Write

• Have pitstops to rehydrate

You - Key academic skills

• Review and discover yourresearch field

• Write, write, write and publish

• Practice presenting your work

• Complete courses

• Help yourself by loving statistics

• Good tools:

• Make a system with litterature:

Endnote with PDFs

• New litterature:

Google Alerts

• Use time to illustrate yourwork: Figures and power point

• …..

You - Key personal skills

• Perseverance

• Self motivation

• Stay sane!

Supervision and help

Supervision is a maze of responsibility, freedom, comitments, demands, roles, agreements, conflicts etc.

Stay active towards your supervision/supervisor

Who/what is your supervisor?

• Administrator

• Academic advisor

• Personal relation

• What does s/he want? Motivation of the supervisor.

• Importance of the research group

Boss

Leader

Master

Guru

Teacher

Expert

Guide

Project manager

Colleague

Friend

Subject

Led

Apprentice

Diciple

Pupil

Novice

Explorer

Team worker

Colleague

Friend

Skill level

Time

Student

Supervisor

The supervisor’s duties

• Within 240 hours supervision, in total

• Scientific responsibility

• Keep track of progression relative to the deadline

• Be in touch regularly

Discuss: what is the supervisors duties in

1. Formulating and delimiting hypothesis/research questions?

2. Producing, interpreting and presenting results?

3. Finding literature?

From the phd regulation:

(10) The supervisors are to

-provide advice on the formulation and delimitation of topics and problems,

-discuss and assess hypotheses and methods, results and their interpretation, conception and implementation of presentation, including organization, language, documentation, and so on,

-and assist in finding relevant literature and data such as available through libraries and archives, etc.

(...)

What do studens say about theirsupervision and their supervisors?

• 50% enough

• 80% happy

• 40% too little

• 20% unhappy

• Not an expert in the

exact field

• Not dedicated to the

project

• Too little time

• An expert in the field

• Encouraging,

supprotive, positive

• Maintain focus

Plans

• Concretely: • Contracts

• Courses

• Papers

• Stays abroad?

• Conferences?

• Avoid unrealisticexpectations• From either part

• So talk about it early• The writing

• The editing

• Litterature

• Statistics

Progression plan

• Midway-evaluations and standardized agreements (EPINOR supervisor forum)

• Break it down to smaller goals

• Count backwards from finish

• Take the victories along the way

Start Defence

Time

• Time management

• «Other things» and projects

• Dialog versus alone time

• Product versus process

• Dealing with stress

Ups and downs

• Diverse group of runners. Some of us have better luck during therace

• Keep the passion

• You are not alone!

• Do little things like litterature

on the «slow» days

• Write something

Safety nets

• Research group

• Department

• Other phd’s

• Other colleagues

Remember: research = collaboration

Multi-diciplinarity

Use them actively =networking!

Dare to expose your ignorance

Conflicts

1. Research group leader

2. Head of department

3. Advisory board of conflicts at Helsefak. (Konfliktråd)“In case of a conflict, both student and supervisor can independently present their case to the advisory board of conflict at Helsefak”

• Section 11 and 12 in the PhD regulation

• Ethical guidelines

You are responsible for asking for help before it’s too late!

The thesis

• Start early thinking of the disposition of the thesis and collect

background material

• Tip: Left over documents

• Keep thinking of the finishing line

• Ref: Bent-Martin

Some advice• Use a progression report actively

• Expose your ignorance (quote: Eiliv Lund), ask for help= networking

• Involve others early in problems

• Act proffesionally and do not lash out in e-mails

• You are your own project manager

• Think constructively and self-motivate

• You are privileged to have time to focus

If it was easy, anyone could do it

KEEP PUSHING