{"id":669,"date":"2018-06-16T05:15:58","date_gmt":"2018-06-16T05:15:58","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/oceansofbiodiversity.blogs.auckland.ac.nz\/?p=669"},"modified":"2024-12-06T11:34:19","modified_gmt":"2024-12-06T10:34:19","slug":"how-to-not-fail-a-phd-and-msc","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/site.nord.no\/oceansofbiodiversity\/2018\/06\/16\/how-to-not-fail-a-phd-and-msc\/","title":{"rendered":"How to (not) fail a PhD (and MSc)"},"content":{"rendered":"<p>Thinking what not to do may help to avoid doing the wrong things. So our research group recently brainstormed on how to fail a PhD. Ideas on <em>how to fail<\/em> were as follows: &#8230;&#8230;&#8230;&#8230;.<\/p>\n<ul>\n<li>Depend entirely on your supervisor, so then everything that goes wrong is their fault;<\/li>\n<li>Avoid discussing your work with others, especially experts in the field and potential collaborators who may steal your brilliant ideas;<\/li>\n<li>Do not bother arranging meetings with your supervisor, they are telepathic and will contact you when the time is right;<\/li>\n<li>When discussing your work with your supervisor, other experts and at seminars do not take notes, if good ideas emerge you will remember them;<\/li>\n<li>Play computer games in the office where the internet is fast and free;<\/li>\n<li>Invest your energy in new emotional love affairs and related drama, university is primarily the place to meet the love of your life after all;<\/li>\n<li>Delete all old files on your computer;<\/li>\n<li>Let your computer worry about where and how to store your data files, rely on its artificial intelligence;<\/li>\n<li>Trust your computer to label and back all your files up in an organised way forever;<\/li>\n<li>Do not get excited about your work, it may be infectious;<\/li>\n<li>If things do not go easily then give up or procrastinate;<\/li>\n<li>Relax, you\u2019ve lots of time, somebody will give you a deadline someday, organisation and self-discipline is only for nerds and sports stars.<\/li>\n<li>Do not read anything, it may be distracting from the computer games.<\/li>\n<\/ul>\n<p>I particularly liked the article \u201c<a href=\"https:\/\/robjhyndman.com\/hyndsight\/phdfail\/\">How to fail a\u00a0PhD<\/a>\u201d by Rob J Hyndman, with the headings:<br \/>\n1. Wait for your supervisor to tell you what to do<br \/>\n2. Wait for inspiration<br \/>\n3. Aim for perfection<br \/>\n4. Aim too high<br \/>\n5. Aim too low<br \/>\n6. Follow every side issue<br \/>\n7. Leave all the writing to the end<br \/>\nAnd \u2018<a href=\"http:\/\/jcs.biologists.org\/content\/121\/11\/1771.short\">The importance of stupidity in scientific research<\/a>\u2019; important lessons for every researcher (thanks to Thomas Morris for alerting us to this article)<br \/>\nRemember, you do not get a PhD for the number of hours spent in the laboratory, field, reading, or doing data analysis. You do get a PhD based on the thesis submitted; so start writing!<br \/>\n<span style=\"color: #0000ff\"><strong>Other reading<\/strong><\/span><br \/>\n<a href=\"http:\/\/www.sciencemag.org\/careers\/2015\/09\/how-not-fail-your-phd-studies\">How (not) to fail in your Ph.D. studies<\/a> by Elisabeth Pain<br \/>\n<a href=\"http:\/\/matt.might.net\/articles\/ways-to-fail-a-phd\/\">10 easy ways to fail a Ph.D.<\/a> by Matt Might<br \/>\n<a href=\"https:\/\/thesiswhisperer.com\/2011\/02\/17\/5-ways-to-fail-your-phd\/\">5 ways to fail your PhD<\/a> and <a href=\"https:\/\/www.youtube.com\/watch?v=JC87UnPg9EU\">videos<\/a><br \/>\n<a href=\"https:\/\/www.nature.com\/articles\/d41586-018-07332-x\">Twenty things I wish I\u2019d known when I started my PhD\u00a0<\/a>by Lucy Taylor<br \/>\n<a href=\"https:\/\/ojs.library.queensu.ca\/index.php\/IEE\/article\/view\/6346\">Some advice to early-career scientists: Personal perspectives on surviving in a complex world <\/a>by John Smol<br \/>\n<a href=\"https:\/\/stearnslab.yale.edu\/some-modest-advice-graduate-students\">Some Modest Advice for Graduate\u00a0Students<\/a> by Stephen Stearns<br \/>\n<a href=\"https:\/\/www.nature.com\/articles\/s41561-021-00799-w.pdf\">Disrupt and demystify the unwritten rules of graduate school\u00a0<\/a> by Jennifer Pensky\u200a, Christina Richardson, Araceli Serrano, Galen Gorski, Adam N. Price\u200a and Margaret Zimmer<\/p>\n<hr \/>\n<p>&nbsp;<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>Thinking what not to do may help to avoid doing the wrong things. So our research group recently brainstormed on how to fail a PhD. Ideas on how to fail were as follows: &#8230;&#8230;&#8230;&#8230;. Depend entirely on your supervisor, so then everything that goes wrong is their fault; Avoid discussing your work with others, especially [&hellip;]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":96,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[3,28,8],"tags":[],"coauthors":[21],"class_list":["post-669","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-for_graduate_students","category-important-tips","category-resource"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/site.nord.no\/oceansofbiodiversity\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/669","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/site.nord.no\/oceansofbiodiversity\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/site.nord.no\/oceansofbiodiversity\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/site.nord.no\/oceansofbiodiversity\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/96"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/site.nord.no\/oceansofbiodiversity\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=669"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/site.nord.no\/oceansofbiodiversity\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/669\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":2140,"href":"https:\/\/site.nord.no\/oceansofbiodiversity\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/669\/revisions\/2140"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/site.nord.no\/oceansofbiodiversity\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=669"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/site.nord.no\/oceansofbiodiversity\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=669"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/site.nord.no\/oceansofbiodiversity\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=669"},{"taxonomy":"author","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/site.nord.no\/oceansofbiodiversity\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/coauthors?post=669"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}