Sunday, April 29, 2012

PhD Survival 1st Year (Part 4)

Dear readers, as promised in the last entry, please find the sample of the 3-year course gantt chart enclosed for your reference. This is the biggest shot that I can squeeze in.

The header row are numbered by month from 1st to 3rd year, total of 36 months (only half is shown in this chart).
 
The first column contains a list of activities: the rows in the first section (i.e General Activities) list down the activities or school requirement in the PhD course. As you can see, student annual leave is also incorporated because our leave coincides with the progress of our research rather than the school holidays. The rows in the second section (i.e Research: Phase 1) are tasks in the research. The rows in the third section (i.e Thesis write-up) are the planned chapters for the final thesis.

The yellow boxes are the estimated month for us to accomplish the listed tasks. There are no yellow boxes for the third section because they are to be accomplished in the 3rd year which is not shown on this chart.

Now...moving on to the next point:

2.2 You must be in love with what you are going to embark into.

'You must love what you are about to do, you must feel comfortable doing it...otherwise PhD is going to be an awful period of your life' (Dr MM).

I have been working in the area of kidney disease, and that is the area I am most comfortable. It excites me and being able to a research in this area is just marvelous. So, I brought this idea to my supervisors. Before the working title was finalised, I was asked to consider another two different research - pharmacokinetics properties of a renal drug in children on dialysis or a  database epidemiological research  (erk! Don't think I can survive in these areas, so many mathematical theories and formulae. I am naturally allergic to numbers and my undergraduate lecturers can certify this). Both research already had frame work in place and had good prospect for publication. Should I chose either one of them, it would have saved me some time in preparing for the research proposal (what I wanted to do have to start from scratch). However, I opted to stick to the topic I am most comfortable with.As much as we should be flexible in deciding on the research area (being too rigid selecting your area of research may make you lose valuable opportunities) it is good to have an idea of your own. You must know what you want; this is when working experience comes in handy.


One of my colleagues could not decide what his/her area of interest was. Within the initial 12 months, he/she tried out two different research and end up terminating the course because it was not what he/she liked doing. 

2.3 How many supervisors (SV)?

Next is dealing with the supervisors (SV) - the person who will be supervising and guiding us throughout the course. They are knowledgeable in identifying research questions and the appropriate method in obtaining the answers, BUT this does not mean that they know more than you do in the research of your PhD. PhD is about adding fresh knowledge...it is something new and unknown. So please do not expect to be spoon fed or wait to be told what to do next or blame entirely on the SV when we feel lost. Almost all postgraduate handbooks explains about how to work or deal with SV, so we shall not discuss them in here. Should you need to know more, do not hesitate to leave your comment.

What is about to be discussed here is to whom should we report to if we have more than one SV? For example, in my case, I have 2 academic SVs, 2 clinical SVs and 3 clinical collaboraters. To be frank, it took me a while to justify who should be tagged in email of certain matters. They are equally important.

So, let us first understand their roles.  In general, academic supervisors (aSV) are responsible for all our academic activities; they should be our principal reference. Positive comments from aSVs can make wonders in passing the final viva (I've heard). The 1st aSV is usually a senior academician (in terms of expertise and reputation) than the 2nd aSV. The 1st aSV plays an important role in the first year especially the initial 6 months. They are influential and often the referral person in their area of research. Due respect to their expertise and reputation, they are the one who would finalise your research questions and method. This also means that they are extremely busy, this is when the 2nd aSV plays a role. The 2nd aSV could be an assistant professor, senior honorary lecturer or research fellow.  They are probably the person you will interact with most of the time for advice and technical matters.  

There is no hard and fuss rule about who should we report to - the only way to know is to ask. Haha..this is important when the 1st and 2nd aSv are having different views..if we do not stand for ourselves; we'll be in dilemma and stuck in the middle.  For example, in my case the arranegement was such:
  • Weekly progress should be emailed to the 1st aSV
  • All correspondant emails (for ex: with collaborators/correpondant author of articles) must be cc'd to both aSV.
  • problems not possible to be settled by the 2nd aSV should be attention to the 1st aSV.
And I also added two more:
  • Whenever you email your 2nd aSV to clarify on any issues or to remind them matters that require their attention/follow-ups, have it cc'd to your 1st aSV (2nd aSV could be busy as well, having the same email cc'd to the boss would help them to remember).
  • If the 1st and 2nd aSV have different views, do not hesitate to ask (either in supervisory meetings or via email) as to which view is final. Most of the time, if they could not decide and this is made known, we have the liberty to decide!...and that is far easier than waiting in confusion.

2.4 What if I could not get along with aSV?


This is very subjective, and I am in no position to advise on how to handle problematic situation between student and aSV. It is something none of us want to fall into. I have no experience in this (and let it be that way); from my observation..most of the tim, the affected student will feel helpless, dissapointed and angry - if you fall in this pithole please do not jump into conclusion, make no decision and keep silent until you have calmed down. Other than praying hard for the situations to turn okay, here are a few tips on what you can do (these suggestions are from my peer discussion):

a. Understand your aSV

An important task from day 1. This does not mean we have to spy and sneak around to understand them. Observe their work ethics and personality. Every time after supervisory meeting, ask your supervisor at which part should you improve. If you do not ask, your aSV would assume you know your weakness and expect you to polish up. Be humble and ready to be taught.  If there is a chance, talk to your aSVs' previous students.

b. Seek help from peer group/some one more seniour in the team

Usually PhD students are part of a research team  in a  research centre/department. The team may consist of other PhD students, research assistant, research fellow and etc. If our colleagues can get along very well with the aSV, reflect what is wrong with ourselves. Talk to other students (but please do not gossip; talk to a colleague who is trustworthy to give advice).

c. Seek help from PhD coordinator

A PhD coordinator (or councellor, advisor or etc) is the officer who looks over the PhD course. Book an appointment to seek advice from the coordinator; discussions are confidential.

2 comments:

Nur Shuhada Kamarudin said...

subahanaAllah....terima kasih sebab berkongsi...sgt2 membantu bagi saya yang tak de pengalaman buat research n datang buat PhD kat UK ni...semoga saudari berjaya di dunia dan di akhirat serta di berkati ilmunya..terima kasih banyak2 berkongsi...

naskas said...

you are most welcome..good luck in your journey