Hi! My name is Alex and I currently work at the Austrian Academy of Sciences in Vienna as a Post-Doc researcher. I am writing a short eBook to help PhD students deal with stress and learn more effective strategies to make the PhD less painful. I’d love to hear from current PhD students about some of the challenges they are facing and would like more help with. Any comments on the below would be really helpful and I will integrate your feedback in the eBook.

1. What is the single most stressful or frustrating thing about doing a PhD?

2. What strategies or skills would you most like to learn or improve in order to make this process easier?

3. If you could improve or change anything about doing a PhD what would it be?

4. If you were starting over, which 2 or 3 things would you do differently?

Many thanks!

1. What is the single most stressful or frustrating thing about doing a PhD?

I haven't found my PhD stressful. The most frustrating thing is probably repeating experiments again and again when they don't work, but it's also a kind of fun learning process too.

2. What strategies or skills would you most like to learn or improve in order to make this process easier?

I think I have most of the skills required to do a PhD because I worked at managerial level for several years before undertaking my PhD and therefore learnt the soft skills required to deal with supervisors, stress, difficult people and situations, high work loads, criticism, rejection etc etc

3. If you could improve or change anything about doing a PhD what would it be?

I would ensure that everyone had 4 years of funding to make it easier to write a thesis and papers in the fourth year. Also might be nice to have decent job prospects afterwards. Also I think some supervisors need managerial training to manage their students effectively as this would avoid a lot of problems and increase productivity.

4. If you were starting over, which 2 or 3 things would you do differently?

I would increase my basic scientific knowledge by taking chemistry and molecular biology classes so that I would have had a better basis to start from and would have made more progress from day 1.

Apart from that, I love my PhD so I wouldn't change anything.

1. What is the single most stressful or frustrating thing about doing a PhD?

I have found two things very stressful. One is having to send drafts of work which I feel are nowhere near perfect to my supervisor and then deal with all the critical feedback, some of which I feel is overly picky. I really enjoyed writing on my master's degree but it is one thing to hand in a carefully crafted 4,000 word essay and get it back with a nice grade along with a few suggestions that you can use to improve the next assignment; quite another thing to hand in 5000 words of literature review when you have no clear idea of where your research is going and then sit and listen to someone tell you everything that is wrong with it.

The second is having to present my work in seminars and conferences. I hate public speaking and find it extremely difficult.



2. What strategies or skills would you most like to learn or improve in order to make this process easier?

After a crisis which led to a change of supervisor I am getting used to the writing thing. My new supervisor is more positive and encouraging, and because I am now under pressure to finish I just accept that a first draft can't be perfect. I have also learned that sometimes it is better to just start writing rather than spending months reading and planning.

For the public speaking problem, I have managed to gather a few supportive colleagues who are working on related topics. We meet regularly and take it in turns to present our work. I also took a friend's advice to rehearse and rehearse and rehearse for conference presentations.

3. If you could improve or change anything about doing a PhD what would it be?

I really wish I had been prepared for how different it is from a master's degree. I didn't imagine it would be the same exactly, but I guess I'm not the only person to have embarked on a PhD because I was a successful and enthusiastic master's student, only to really struggle with the transition to PhD.

4. If you were starting over, which 2 or 3 things would you do differently?

I would write more in the early stages and try not to be so sensitive about criticism.

I would try to establish a support network with other students in the first year and I would be more willing to admit when I was struggling.

I would tell my supervisor when I didn't know how to tackle something instead of wasting weeks trying to work it out by myself.

1. What is the single most stressful or frustrating thing about doing a PhD?

For me, it has been the assumption that we all start with a full set of skills and perfect confidence. I am confident in some areas (generating research questions, academic writing etc) but completely inexperienced in others (conference presentations, teaching). At a PhD seminar, I was told that you need a 'poker face' and to just basically bluff your way through everything, and this seems to be the culture I have observed. I'm used to letting every reaction show on my face, and working in a supportive and collaborative way, so it has been a culture shock. I spent the first semester telling myself, 'get your head down and don't leave'.

2. What strategies or skills would you most like to learn or improve in order to make this process easier?

If I could crack the public speaking one then I'd still have a lot of hard work ahead, but none of the sheer terror! I am making myself do one thing every week towards this.

3. If you could improve or change anything about doing a PhD what would it be?

Early opportunities to get to know other students and the department would have helped a lot. Our PhD office was full when I started so I got a temp desk elsewhere and didn't even know how to find fellow students.

4. If you were starting over, which 2 or 3 things would you do differently?

Spend time beforehand identifying my own skills gaps and doing something about them before starting.
Pluck up the courage to ask who and where the other PhD students were so I didn't spend the first semester without meeting them!