10 Tips on How to Get a PhD

The secret of how to get a PhD is not rocket science (unless you are studying rockets!): it's about being organized, focused and showing that you have met the learning outcomes for the program. I have supervised PhDs for over 15 years and my students are generally successful. What they had in common was a great desire for success. Don't even start if you are only 99% committed. Here are my top 10 tips on how to get a PhD from what I have learned as a supervisor.

How long does it take you to describe your research question or aim? If it takes more than one sentence, you don't understand what you are doing well enough. Too often candidates rush in with an ill-specified question or aim. This leads to lots of ill-focused activity, much of which will be wasted, and is a major contributory factor to students giving up along the way. Your question or aim may evolve, but any time during your study, I would expect you to tell me what your research question or aim is in one succinct statement or question.

Choose a subject that you love. You will be intimately involved with this topic for three to five years. That's longer than many relationships these days. Just as in a relationship, there will be days when you feel naturally very positive about your subject, but there will be days when you are heartily sick of it. To survive those days, you need a strong underlying love for the subject and a commitment to see it through: it's more like a marriage than an affair!

It's all about the planning--see my other articles on planning for your PhD study and outlining your research proposal. The specific tip here is that getting a PhD is a long process, so set yourself milestones. Most programs have a mid-program review, sometimes in the form of a progression from MPhil to PhD. But use more milestones, so set yourself more interim goals, in the form of seminars presentations and publications along the way. This is especially important for part time students where the end point can seem a very long way away and distractions such as the day job, the kids and even the washing can seem more urgent if not more important.

One of the most important and often neglected aspects of writing up a PhD is to reflect at the end what you have learned and how far you have come. To make this possible, you need to keep a diary, otherwise you will forget where you were at the beginning. It should be a place where you record what you think at that stage of your studies. If you do this, you will be amazed how your thoughts progress and deepen, and writing up a reflection about what you have learned at the end will be easy and rewarding.

This will save you repeating stuff that has already been done, and inform your own efforts. It is a requirement of the examination process that you can demonstrate this knowledge, but more surprisingly, it may trigger all sorts of your own ideas that you wouldn't have thought of on your own. And finally, please find out it early enough to stop you wasting time and effort.