[Closed] PhD routine advice

Simples, if you can stick the 9-5 strictly. Otherwise you'll be doing all the hours in the day for the last 6-9 months.

yes, but maybe not at the end, a lot of my weekends were long ones too!!!

You have funding 😡 so yeah it's doable.

I spent weekends and evenings behind a bar to fund mine...

EDIT: Agree with ^^^^^. It's not so easy to balance things in the last year.

Yes. Make sure you put the work in from the off (I slacked a bit for the first year and paid for it at the end) and it doesn't need to be any worse than a normal job. Arguably better, if you have the type of supervisor who doesn't care what hours you are in as long as you are getting the work done.

Four years is a long time too, most are just 3, mine took four but I had to deal with Foot and Mouth spoiling a year and then was working for most of the fourth year full time.

Absolutely. The only times i ever worked past 5.30pm or at weekends was when i needed to practice presentations for conferences.

I submitted in 3.5 years and finished my viva and corrections in just under 4.

The PhD is about results, not hours. There's a pretty tried and tested correlation between the two, however. Bottom line is that most areas of real research are going to be challenging and unpredictable. The person who tries the most experiments / approaches is going to make the most progress.
I've seen all types of PhD students - 9-5 folk who were superstars and 9-9 folk who were total time-wasters. Not too many of the former, though, tbh.

Depends a lot on the lab, as well. I don't know the CS field, but if you started a molecular biology PhD in a serious lab, for example, and declared an interest in working 9-5, 5 days a week, there would be laughter all round. Other areas aren't as labour intensive.

Congratulations in any case - the PhD is a superb opportunity.

Totally doable but then I don't think you can turn up at 9 every day and expect a PhD to just happen in 4 years. You have to develop a clear strategy for how your work will fit together in a thesis.

Mine took 3.5 years but i did a fair amount of teaching during that time. I was strict on not working late and avoided working at home to keep a nice balance.

The good thing about (most) PhDs is you're effectively your own boss, so use that freedom to set work hours which suit you best. A mate of mine worked best 11-3 then 6-8, so that is what he did. I preferred 10-6 as i like a lay in. It will take you a while to settle into a working pattern, so don't worry too much to begin with.

edit - and make sure you take holiday. Set yourself x weeks a year, and use them like you would in a job. It is very easy to forget to take time off.

Thanks for the replies everyone, its nice to know that others have been able to do it.

I realise that it is going to take a lot of effort on my part but I am determined to get it right so that I can enjoy riding and spending time with the OH whilst I am working towards it.

I must admit to being slightly naive about it all since I have never worked on anything quite as significant. I hope I capable of staying focused and continually working hard...

andrewrchambers - Member
I hope I capable of staying focused and continually working hard...

You'll be the exception is manage both of those things. It is a roller coaster and there will times you can't be arsed and/or think you're useless.

Well said, CaptJon!

As Gary said, it's about results rather than hours. As someone who has recently finished in a somewhat related field, I think that simulation work is both a blessing and a curse. You could easily work 9-5, or any other hours that you fancy. While 9-5 is probably sufficient for getting a PhD, getting a decent number of publications in good journals will almost certainly take longer than that (IME), I averaged between 50 and 60 hours per week but never started work before 10:30am.

Enjoy your research is the best advice that I can give you, and don't get too stuck in your tiny N-th degree stratification. Other adjacent problems can be interesting too, and give you a lot of insight to your own work (this is particularly true in SSP and ML: look at a wide variety of applications, not just in CS and what your supervisor gives you).

Lastly, please don't get sucked into all the ""being a millionaire in the city" BS: the jobs are largely boring and the pay isn't that great. Some fantastic ML type jobs are coming up in "massive data" type apps, interesting work with good companies and good pay: I (fairly) often wish I'd done a PhD in ML myself.

Choron

The two labs I did mine jointly in. One was completely lacking in a work ethic and the other was a 10hours a day and 6days a week culture. I was meant to be 50:50 in them but I soon figured if I wanted a good PhD I would need to spend more of my time in the later and I did spend 80% there. Damn over 20yrs ago now. PhDs are qualification in perseverence and dedication with a sprinkling of deep thought.

Also, this is more true than you can possibly imagine...

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do an MBA instead. or accountancy. or, anything. plumbing. shelf stacking. anything.

yours,

Dr. Bigrich, research fellow. project leader.

blimey you lot must have been doing it wrong working all those hours 😯

[i]PhDs are qualification in perseverence and dedication with a sprinkling of deep thought.[/i]

Fully agree.

I never got a great deal of satisfaction doing mine, it was just a long grind. But all that said I do not recall working super long hours and I am glad I did one.

I treated mine pretty much as a 9-5 job, which in itself was a bit of a culture shock from being a lazy but bright undergraduate

I went back and did mine having been in a proper job previously; I treated it just like I did with that job (and jobs since) - so largely 9-5 but later if necessary to get work done, some writing and reading at home and where necessary going in late evening or at a weekend to turn a piece of equipment on or off etc. I was out in 3 years. Many of my 'colleagues' took nearer 5, but seemed to spend a lot of time playing football, surfing the net, and were more likely to be 'out on the lash' and hungover the next day.

Finished mine in 3 and a quarter years - treated it as a 9 to 5. For me it was a lot less work that an actual job (not academia)- I look back and am amazed at the amount of free time I had.

A a lot of the advice above is good - I reckon there's a fair bit of luck in terms of the subject matter - it's research so you could be unlucky and have a topic that just turns out hard!

Learned a lot during mine, and I don't mean in terms of the subject matter - for me it was a really good experience in learning about myself and maturing from my undergrad years, from being good at passing exams to finding out what it is like to do research for real. Be prepared to feel you're not up to it - I spent a lot of time feeling like that, and I think it's pretty common feeling.

Good luck with it.

I'm really pleased with all replies (Even the scary comics!) and looking forward to it even more now.

Don't mind a bit of hard work and self doubt if I feel its worthwhile in the end.

And if I've still got time to get out and ride regularly then I'm a happy chap.

Edit: and I hope I can stick to a routine!