Things about a PhD nobody told you about | Laura Valadez-Martinez | TEDxLoughboroughU

There are currently seven hundred and forty thousand students enrolled in a doctorate in Europe, that is, for every thousand of the adult population that is enrolled in a doctorate, a Doctor of Philosophy known as a PhD or DPhil comes from the Latin teach and the Greek love. of wisdom is a process in which you can master the ins and outs of a topic that is really of interest to you it is a process in which you can learn and expand your knowledge and really get to know what it is about a doctorate usually begins with some proposal containing research questions some methodology some justification for why this is important you are supposed to write a thesis of about a hundred thousand words, so it is a long job, you work under the guidance of a supervisor and then you define your You are encouraged to polish the work after a panel of examiners in academic journals and in some countries there may be some teaching and some coursework involved, so this is what the process usually looks like.

That's the formal standard definition of what happens in a PhD. However, there are many

things

about how to do a PhD well, a simple Google search for the phrase how to write a PhD returns around two and a half million results, so there are books, magazines, blogs, articles, you name it. , there is a lot of information about how to do well in a Doctorate University I will tell you this is what you have to do this is what you have to accomplish to finish your degree and be called a doctor quite well however there are some

things

that no one talks about There are some things you discover As I take that journey, today I'll focus on seven of them.

I'll explain my experience when I did my PhD on these issues and some ideas on how to overcome them, so the first one is: I'm stuck. We don't know what's next, we've probably heard of the term writer's block when someone can't make progress in their dissertation or PhD writing, however, getting stuck would be much more, you could be stuck with stagnant ideas. with methodology, not knowing how to do it, how to run a model, the beginning, not knowing where to find the literature, stuck in not knowing how to analyze the results, so there are a lot of mental processes that take place while doing a PhD. from vocabulary to memory analysis synthesis, so it's normal to feel stuck at a certain point without knowing what's next.

Mahe, no one

told

me about that. They need to think, so it is important to have some time to think. Reading takes time. Knowing how to do something takes time. Learning a new method takes time, so it's important to read a lot, but to pause and think and really make sense of the things you're reading and this time to think is really important. The second challenge is that there are more and yes. many more there are more books to read more authors to find more methods to test more questions to address there is always something else I usually say that doing a PhD is like opening doors, so each of these reserves of knowledge that you open leads to a world completely new research and each of these doors that you open goes to another world of research, so new books, new authors, new things, so do you really want to go there?

Do you really want to move forward and lose the original starting point? So good, no one

told

me about it. the importance of actually living things it's important to make sure you're really focusing on what you're doing. Yes, it's important to renew things, but also focus on what you really want to do. Many of the readings you will read will have to be done. stay in the drawer and a lot of the calculations you'll do will have to go in the trash, which can be very frustrating and doesn't seem like progress, but that's progress, so leaving things out actually makes your thesis progress, sometimes I have to read a lot to really understand what is important for youth work or say no, this is not important.

I'll have to put it aside. A third challenge I have discovered is that I have no motivation to do a PhD. difficult, it is not intended to be something easy, we have heard oh, it is a marathon, yes, a PhD is a marathon with some Sprints too, but mainly a marathon where the work is constant and long and the final result is very far away and Yes, it is very easy to find lack of motivation. A recent study in the UK showed that 3 in 10 PhD students will not finish their degree within 7 years and obviously a lot happens and a lot influences dropout rates.

Why someone? you're not finishing your PhD though, lack of motivation is certainly one of those, but no one told me, hey, go for it and you can do it, so I won't do it either, instead I'll say work, work really hard and then Keep working like the painter Pablo Picasso said inspiration does. It exists, but it has to find you working, so yes, a PhD is a constant process that you are working on, but no one told me about the importance of timely progress, so all this reading that you are reading and all these calculations that you are doing . all the paragraphs that you're writing that are progress, you may not feel like that, but that's progress and that's important, so these little achievements are really important and they give you this sense of accomplishment that you're actually doing something because while When you write a PhD, there's always something you could do, so if you're really struggling to write a paragraph, try something else, try outlining maybe your methodology chapter, or if you're tired of doing calculations, find your graphs and try make them pretty.

So there are some ways that something you could be doing, even if it's small and tiny, that's progress and that's how you do a PhD. On the other hand, you can also find small advances elsewhere, so it doesn't have to be in your thesis. Let's say actually find something else that you can do where you can find that sense of accomplishment and that you're making progress that's important in your life. It could be something like baking a cake. It could be joining a class painting even though you're not good at painting, but just try it and having that feeling that something is finished is really important if a PhD is a long process where you work constantly and the work is there and there's always something to do. you have to do. having these small breakthroughs elsewhere really keeps you going and that gives you the motivation to continue with the PhD process now.

One challenge I found is that I forgot what I did. It may seem crazy, but yes, you can forget what you did. sometimes you can forget what you just did a minute ago because a PhD requires working long hours maybe you haven't slept maybe you've been reading a lot and you forget you have stress you have deadlines something is coming up so it's very easy to get confused and forget what you did so no one told me about the importance of having a research journal well actually someone did and that's one of the best pieces of advice I haven't been given so write in the research journal and I mean writing down the decisions you made.

Why did you make them while working on my PhD? I had to do some calculations to model the effects of poverty on children. I had a data set with over 3,000 variables and over 25,000 cases. Some of the information was at the individual level. the information was at the household level, some of the information was at the macroeconomic level and you had to put it all together to model how the effects of poverty would affect children, obviously with all these theories surrounding it, so yes, a PhD is a constant process of going between details and generality so it's easy to forget why you were doing something and if you're tired and you haven't slept it's like why did I do that this is what the space under my desk looked like there were a lot of notes, hundreds of them just tracking each decision, how I changed each variable, if these variables meant then I wrote them down, if I later decided to change them I would say why, because then it's very easy to forget to say why I changed that, so it's important to maintain this. research journal and I said that's it and that's why they passed me on, so I'm sharing it with you in relation to that, if you're working on the syntax of writing quantitative research, it's kind of a research journal, but in the program you're working, so it is a way to keep track of the variables that you are doing, but not only that will allow you to find errors and replicate the analysis, so if you want to do this type of research again with another data set. or is there something else you could use that syntax to write it and also related to that, well never, this may seem easy and simple, but never save changes to the original data set if you are working with data sets where my models ended up . top looking multipoverty multipoverty 2003 multipoverty 2003 food move poverty 2003 new homeless multipoverty final I can see some people laughing, it probably sounds familiar I don't know, I don't know if that's the best way or not, but at least it helped me realize a follow-up of what I was doing or what was going on and then when something said end-end, this is the good, well, it was good, so don't delete that data set and move on to the fifth one. channel challenge well I'm not sure this is relevant suddenly one of the most important questions on your mind is it really relevant is it important if it adds something to the world if it adds something to knowledge if anyone is going to read this okay okay According to the OECD, doctors are expected to play a key role in society because it drives that knowledge of science and technology which is a big statement and reveals high expectations, so yes, it is no wonder why it is easy to feel afraid and being afraid of not knowing what to do or being afraid of whether this is relevant or not, so my idea says, well, no one told me about self-confidence, it's important to have self-confidence and I have a couple of those.

One way to have self-confidence is to read the originals to read the original documents Social policy scholar says Anderson said that Adam Smith is often cited, but rarely read, so if you are going to use Adam Smith in your thesis, look up Adam Smith, don't trust someone else, he said this is part of good scholarship anyway, but if you are using any author, look for the original source because not only will you find new ideas and new approaches, but you will also will help you find how it connects to your research. A second way is to get in touch and stay up to date read magazines go to conferences find out who else is working on your topic that is important because not everything will learn from each other but you will also know that you are on the right path the sixth challenge is I feel lonely a PhD could be a lonely process and I mean a very lonely process, so yes, a PhD is done alone, but it doesn't have to be a lonely process.

A study from the University of California at Berkeley recently found that about half of graduate students suffer from some form of depression and obviously many things play a role in depression, but feeling alone in a process that is already long and difficult It doesn't help, so no one talked to me about the importance of staying connected. One way to stay connected is to get involved in your department, talking to your colleagues. but not only about academic things but also saying well I don't feel lost I don't know what to do I don't know how to do this look for a way to be connected with others there is another way to be connected is to talk to your supervisor, well, you are the only person in the world who knows exactly that topic the best way, but that second person should be your supervisor, so talk to them, find a way to connect with them, and say I don't know what. is next, I don't know how to do this, so to be honest, I am humbled to know that research is difficult and this is a long process.

A third way to connect with the world is fine, something simple, for example, buy a planet, well, it's not necessary, but I did it and I guess I watched mine grow for four years and it was rewarding, so it was nice, It was one way to connect with the world, but another is also to connect with your family and friends. that are outside of academia, so it's a reminder that there are problems that are not related to not knowing how to write the paragraph that are not related to Modell, not converging, not finding the right information, so find ways to connect with other people and also with the way you are prepared, you are prepared to explain how your four-year thesis, your hundred thousand works are summarized in sentences because they will ask you and not only will they ask you, but that is the feeling of accomplishment that you know when you are able to say.

This is my thesis in one or two sentences you have made progress because you know what you are talking about and well finally what is the right way but no one told me that either, I don't know some people work office hours from 9:00 to 1: 00 2:00 to 5:00 some people work there at night others work during the weekend and then nothing during the day I don't know it's up to you there is no one right approach it's a process inthe one where you can really find what interests you and find your own path I have said many things now but this is just my journey this is my experience so it is up to you if you are starting a PhD or thinking about it there are no secret recipes About How to be successful you have to find your own paths, so let it and shape it now.

They have told you. Thank you so much.