Duc Pham, Mechanical Engineering, The University of Birmingham
Next week, I will deliver my annual induction talk to our new PhD students, offering them advice on how to succeed in their endeavours. Given the stage they are at, the advice is generic and applies whether one is pursuing research in micro manufacturing or in materials and metallurgy. In this column, I will share some of that straightforward advice with readers beginning their doctoral journeys. As those who have been on such journeys can testify, they are long and fraught with difficulty, like roller-coaster rides where infrequent peaks of exhilaration are almost always followed by deep valleys of despondency.
My first piece of advice is that well-prepared doctoral researchers should be confident in their abilities eventually to overcome obstacles in their paths to graduation: after all, it is far rarer for people to fail their PhDs than not to pass their GCSE exams! When encountering problems, rather than panicking or feeling depressed, an effective doctoral researcher should rise to the occasion and calmly remember that hard problems are a doctoral researcher’s best friends for, without them, there would be no PhDs.
It would be wrong to assume that a confident attitude is all that is required to succeed. A doctoral researcher should concentrate on his work and apply himself conscientiously to it. Although PhD research requires much more time than for a 9-to-5 job, experience shows that it is better to keep to a consistent schedule and work 9-to-5 every day than burning the midnight oil for a couple of days and playing for the remainder of the week.
Also, there will be many interesting diversions – academic or otherwise – but an effective doctoral researcher does not allow himself to be distracted. When the going gets tough or boredom threatens to set in, he should persevere and not engage in what psychologists call “displacement activities.” There is much truth in the saying that PhD success is ten percent intelligence and ninety percent persistence (see Hugh Kearns’ book “The Seven Secrets of Highly Successful Research Students”).
However, working hard is not sufficient either. To be successful, PhD researchers should also work smart. They should learn and use techniques of creative problem solving. Few people are lucky enough to be born with Einstein’s genius and no-one is expected to be as clever as Einstein to earn a PhD, but everybody can be trained to be more creative and innovative. There are well-known methods, such as those of lateral thinking, to help one to come up with novel solutions to difficult problems.
Novice researchers often struggle to identify solid research issues on which to base their theses. They should follow the lead of good experienced researchers who can discover new fertile areas to explore by challenging conventional wisdom and constantly striving to extend and improve on the work of others. Their curiosity drives them to read avidly and their critical minds prevent them from accepting what is reported in the literature as the complete truth.
Finally, a researcher may be brilliant, but if he does not communicate his results well, other people are unlikely to notice, understand and use them. Researchers should therefore practise communicating clearly and concisely. When writing articles for publication, they should check and re-check the information presented for correctness, completeness and consistency, rather than rush to print and end up regretting having careless mistakes permanently recorded for posterity.
Thus, here is the secret of highly effective doctoral researchers: aim for straight Cs – be confident, work conscientiously and consistently, learn and use techniques to enhance creativity, be curious and critical, challenge convention, communicate clearly and concisely and check your work carefully! It is no exaggeration that applying this simple formula has helped many a doctoral student secure PhDs and become A-grade researchers.
http://www.birmingham.ac.uk/schools/engineering/mechanical-engineering/index.aspx