Tricks to Deal with PhD Boredom
Spending four years in the academia is not as easy as falling off a log. Foraging literature, lab experiments, writing arguments cause monotony. It is normal to start loathing your subject. However, you can easily deal with boredom. Start early Jadedness usually arises when you feel overwhelmed by your research workload, you feel nagged by an inner critic that you cannot work hard to accomplish your research, and you feel constant apprehensions. To control your scepticism, you should start as early as you can. The earlier you start, the better. Scheduling your writing will keep you from depression that you face while writing your whole thesis at the last minute. Use the most productive method Research is strenuous and therefore you need to find out a productive way to carry out it in time. Identify the time when ideas are mapped out in your brain and what is the best time for writing because framing ideas is one thing and writing them is a whole different thing. If you work better in the morning, do it in the morning. If you feel better working at night, do it at night. Try to be more productive so that you can get free time to relax your brain instead of making the excuse that you have lots of work to do. Give yourself time off Taking time out from your hectic schedule is also crucial to avoid feeling like you are stuck in a rut. Recreational activities such as casual meetings with friends, watching movies, and attending parties can prevent you from tedium. However, this comes to happen if you start early. Make your writing schedule from the beginning of your research. Use programmes such as EndNote to have your work done easily. PhD is a marathon that requires tedious research. The only tip to keep yourself from boredom is to start writing as soon as...
read morePhd stress: why should you not ignore the signs
It is a known fact that PhD causes stress and is a common symptom to find amongst the scholars. Stress brings with it some physiological side effects and if they are ignored they would not just disturb your output in your PhD but your life beyond it would also suffer. Stress, primarily is related to anything in life is a warning sign that things are not the way they should be and if neglected and suppressed under pressure, by force, things would just become worse and not let you cope up with life and its challenges. As a PhD scholar, there are certain signs you shouldn’t ignore so that you are able to gauge and handle stress if it is disturbing your life in any way: A perpetual feeling that you are incapable of working to your potential An overwhelming feeling with the demands of the work and deadlines A feeling that you haven’t performed to the best of your ability and you are incapable to focus and concentrate A feeling of not having control over yourself Finding easy things also difficult and challenging in comparison to your capacity A feeling of fear and hopelessness Utmost physical and mental exhaustion If you have any of the above mentioned symptoms and feel that by getting more systematic and working out things you will be able to deal with the problem then you haven’t addressed the problem at the fundamental level. As a PhD scholar and the pressure from your supervisor, you would have a lot of pressure on you head and a lot of work to do, and with that the most difficult thing to do is to slow down but remember, it is also the most important thing to do. You must begin with giving time to yourself and trying to simplify what you are trying to do. At the onset, reduce the number of things that you are working upon simultaneously. This can be done by prioritising and breaking down your different tasks into simpler steps and go on at a pace that you can manage and handle. This isn’t all , when things go wrong you must be able to manage your reaction so that you don’t take a professional failure as a personal failure. On the contrary, engage with the problem and try to find a creative solution to the problem as “things going wrong” is inevitable in research and your success and failure is determined by your reaction to the success or failure. So next time, you have such feelings of distress and anxiety which seems uncontrollable, go to the root level and handle the stress problem, rather than living with...
read moreAll about the Joint PhD Program
Also popularly known as split-PhDs, it is a single PhD program done at two universities or institutions at a time on the same topic. Students must meet the requirements of both the universities to obtain admissions leading to either two PhD degrees or single. Often one or more universities collaborate to conduct academic and research programs and are supervised and guided by faculty from both the universities. The study or the research will be conducted on the ongoing research collaboration between the universities or third party research groups. There are three types of joint-PhD programs which are defined on the basis of amount of work that needs to be done. The first one is the Pre-defined project which is done by the two universities jointly. The second one is the established schemes by high-level universities or institutions. The third one is normal joint PhD from two universities which do not have a formal agreement. Joint PhDs are being conducted by universities to strengthen and broaden their research collaboration and are not easy for all students as Joint PhDs are specialized studies. Students should study how a joint-PhD can add to their strength or research. The students must keep moving from one place to other, discuss the ideas and work with both the supervisors and also mediate between them. Although students will have access to libraries and both university campuses, it is not always easy to secure funding for a Joint PhD. But students can get closer the best researchers, discuss and work with them through Joint PhDs. Students have to look out for matching supervisors relevant to your field of study and interest. Students must also take care to follow the language in which the thesis needs to submitted and in which format to be documented. If they lack skills to properly format their thesis, they can also take help from experts for formatting thesis. All together Joint PhDs are quite rigorous and require a lot more work than normal...
read moreNeed for Second PhD
In today’s age of growing competition, having specialization in only one academic domain may not cater to the need of exploring dimensions of any academic discipline. In order to do so, an interdisciplinary knowledge is absolutely essential, and that is where need of going for a second PhD degree comes into picture. Having a second PhD degree can help academicians in building up their careers as consultants, as well. There are several organizations, which assist academicians, who are going for a second PhD degree, in several ways. For more information about importance of having a second PhD, kindly go through the pages of...
read moreA Passion for Research
There are many reasons why scholars undertake some arduous research project. One of the main reasons is passion. Research projects take a great deal of time. They often do not get completed till many years have passed. That is why it is essential that scholars select a subject in which their passion for knowledge will not waver. If researchers were to undertake a project for the sake of money or position, they will give up on the project long before they achieve either one. Passion alone can sustain a man or a woman through the rocky road that is academic...
read moreFollow Us
