So hello and a very warm welcome to this
UCL chemistry careers podcast on should
I do a PhD. I'm Raj Sidhu, your host and
chemistry careers consultant, and by the end
of this session I'm confident you'll
have a clearer idea as to the process,
the pitfalls, advantages and
disadvantages of doing a PhD. To that end
I'm delighted to be joined by Dr. Anna
Roffey, hello, and Dr. Stephen Potts of UCL's
Department of Chemistry. Why don't you go
ahead and share a little bit about
yourselves with the audience?
Anna first... Hi, so I did my PhD at UCL, I
actually did my undergraduate at Bristol
University and I worked at the RSC
in-between but I really wanted to get
back into the lab which is why I went
and did the PhD and now I'm back at UCL
as a teaching fellow in the chemistry
department. Okay, Stephen... I'm also a
teaching fellow in the chemistry
department and I also did my PhD at UCL
but I also did my undergraduate at UCL,
but I made sure I took a break and I
did a five-year postdoc in the
Netherlands and then went on to a more
teaching focused role at Queen Mary
for three years before returning to UCL
at my current position. Okay, so we're
going to launch into the first question now,
which is defining what a PhD is, what
are your thoughts? Well I looked it up on
Google because as any good researcher
would and it stands for a Doctor of
Philosophy but basically it's the
highest level of degree that you can do.
You do it after you have some form of
undergraduate, Master's or Bachelor's
degree and it's a 3 or 4 or possibly
more year project where you do research
and hopefully gain insight and push the
boundaries of research, learn something
new about an area, so something novel,
something quite unique about the
research that's done as part of a PhD?
Yes. Anything to add to that Stephen? You
know I think you pretty much covered it
but one thing I would say is that more
often than not you generally have to
have
a Master's level degree to start it. There
are a few exceptional cases where people
only have a Bachelor's but they
really are exceptional, so if you're
thinking of doing a PhD and you're in
the earlier stages of your undergraduate
degree, you probably want to do a Master's;
either a combined or separate one first.
You mentioned PhDs can be three or
four years or sometimes longer,
what contingent factors might contribute
to the differing timeframes? So that
probably depends on the funding that you
have and the country in which you do the
PhD. So here in the UK, a basic normal PhD
will be three years but sometimes you'll
have funding for four years and the
first year will be more foundational and
may include a separate Master's of
Research in that first year. Okay can you
give me an example of one or two current
PhD projects you may be aware of in the
Department of Chemistry?
So to give examples of the typical types
of PhD research we're doing in the
Department of Chemistry at the moment,
you've got organic synthesis PhDs where
you're looking at making better roots to
drug synthesis or maybe the more
inorganic ones where you're trying to
make materials to improve either
electronics or solar cells and the more
physical ones where we're analysing the
components of the air or gases or even
down to the way molecules behave using
lasers and if you're not such a fan of
the lab there are also computational
projects as well, so simulations of
chemical processes that people look into.
There's a wide range of topics.
What would you say typically takes place
in years 1 2 & 3 of a 3 a PhD? Well the
first year you're typically getting to
grips with the topic if you haven't been
doing that in your Master's so it's not
uncommon to go down a slightly different
route to your Master's and by the end of
it you'll have got to know your group a
little bit better, you'll be helping each
other out and starting maybe to see some
results but you won't necessarily get
results early on that depends entirely
on the on the topic you're looking at.
Year 2 you should be a bit more advanced,
you might be on the verge of writing
your first
paper but caveat emptor, there is this
thing called the 'second year blues' where
you're feeling depressed that you're not
getting results you're expecting...
this is entirely normal, lots of people
get it and it's always better afterwards
and then ideally in the third year
you've taken more control of the
direction, maybe away from your
supervisor, so you should have a better
idea. You'll be getting lots of last
experiments done and you'll prepare for
the write-up. Typically you'll have at
UCL certainly a first year
viva just to make sure that you're
on the right track and then you'll have
a second year upgrade viva to make
sure that you're suited to continue to
do the full PhD, and in the very unlikely
event that you're not, you might be
suggested that you finish with an
MPhil so a Master's of Philosophy instead.
I'd heard about the final viva, but the
years one and two ones are completely new to
me, what do those look like? Well the year
one viva will typically be a one-on-one
chat with an internal member of staff
and they will really they just want to
talk to you and see what your
understanding is. They're not there to
examine you or make you feel rubbish
and the second year one is a bit more
formal. I think we have one or two
members of staff but again internal so
you'll know them and they're just there
to make sure that you will be ready in a
year's time and to actually defend your
PhD. If it's looking like you're not,
and again this is incredibly rare, you'll
probably just be offered the MPhil
instead and get out a year early. Okay
Stephen you mentioned one thing in there
a little bit earlier around getting used
to the group, what does that mean? Well
inevitably you're not the only one
working for your supervisor, they have
lots of other group members as well,
sometimes we refer to it as the 'academic
family' so you have your academic
brothers and sisters you'll be working
alongside, other PhD students, other
Master's students and postdoctoral
students as well so, though well they're
not students they are postdocs who have
completed their PhD and a taking more
leading role in research under the
supervisor's umbrella. So you'll need to
get on with all these people and help
the lab as well so certainly for the wet
chemical topics it can be things like
going to get the solvents together, making
sure the lab's tidy and working together
like that but you can also help each
other out by 'oh, can you do this NMR
measurement for me?' 'could you fill this
up for me could' or 'could you just keep an eye on
my reaction while I pop to my meeting' or
something like that, so it's a
communal thing actually as well. Great,
Anna how closely would you say your own
experience in your PhD resembled that
three-year process? Quite closely,
although I have to say I didn't have a
very big group so although I had two
other members of my group I had like a
much wider community of other groups
that we all shared the lab with so actually I
did have a very similar experience
with my brothers and sisters in
chemistry but it wasn't actually
inside my group, so there's loads of
support out there. Yeah I don't
remember doing a viva in my first year. I
probably did but I don't remember, it was some
years ago, it might be because it was a
different institution so what I've said
was very much the UCL experience. Yeah
well I did my PhD at UCL yeah I do I
remember doing a report in the first
year and I definitely remember doing an
upgrade viva in the second year which I
was very afraid of but was absolutely
fine, everyone was the same amount afraid
and everyone did exactly the same they
did fine and there were various other
things like doing posters they were yes
a very sort of like touchstone
assessment pieces along the way to kind
of help you become a fully-fledged
researcher. Brilliant, and for my own
curiosity, you talk about your PhD
families - your brothers and sisters
are you both still in touch with those?
Very much so yes I see them regularly
and I actually draw on quite a few of
them professionally as well, they've all
gone into different careers and yes I
find that really useful to have that
network. Oh yeah just one other thing
it's not just about doing the research
and then writing your thesis it's a bit
about communicating the research you're
doing, so often you'll be encouraged to
go to
conferences and ideally present
something. You're not often allowed to go
to a conference if you're not presenting,
that can be a poster or if you're
feeling brave, a talk, and I would remind
you that at UCL chemistry we do our
school the third year PhD students to
present their research in the PhD
seminars in the third year which is as
Anna said earlier, scary yet rewarding and
you feel great afterwards. I'd also like
to add that people worry about the
vivas at the end of their PhD but you
will not be put in for your viva until
you are ready to take it so please don't
worry too much about failing it, that's
an extremely rare circumstance, extremely
rare. Stephen can you remember the first
talk you gave at a conference? Yes, but
that was actually often my PhD, I
remember the first poster it was at the
ACS American Chemical Society conference
in Boston. It was a massive room with loads of
people and I was standing there in my
little shirt and tie nervously by my
poster and then my PhD supervisor
comes along and says 'hey here's my
student why don't you talk to' etcetera
etcetera.
So it gets easier the more you
do it, it's one of those things that the
nerves will go and you get into it.
And I'm also sensing from that an
international aspect, you mentioned
Boston, is that something a typical PhD
might experience? Absolutely, this is
cutting-edge research you're doing so,
it's not just important in the UK, it's
important internationally, and a lot of
the big conferences are hosted
internationally and that's where you've
got to go and it's also great to meet
people. Networking is important, so if you
fancy doing say a postdoc in another
country after your PhD, that's a great
way to meet other people and if they
have you in the back of their mind it
can help a little bit. That's how I got
my first postdoc. Oh yeah tell me more about
that
So I went to a conference in my
final year of my PhD and I didn't
actually have a talk I just had a poster
but I was quite diligent and I stood by
my poster and I made sure that I met
lots of people and I wasn't really sure
about what I wanted to do after the PhD, and
a professor from a university in Sweden
came and spoke to me and he was really
interested in my skill-set because he
could see from the research I've done
that I was able to do lots of different
things and he wanted those skills for
his research group and he offered me a
postdoc in his group in Sweden and I
took it and it was really fun for two
years. Okay so now we're going to move on to
good reasons for doing a PhD. Who'd like to
volunteer the first one? Well if you want
to take up a career in academia you've got
to have a PhD, so the first thing to do
is 'what do I want to do with my degree?'
and if it involves an academic career,
you'll have to do a PhD indeed maybe
some industrial careers would expect you
to have that level of qualification as
well because it shows that you have
research skills maybe even certain
teaching career paths as well so make
sure if it's relevant to your career,
that's a good reason to do a PhD. So just
check first. You mentioned an industrial
link there, Stephen, can you tell me more
about that please? So in industry, a lot
of it is research-based you need to show
that you're a competent researcher and
often if you have a PhD that won't hold
you back. That will show that you can do
research and research to a good level
and that you can do it independently.
Yeah actually if I can jump in, I have
friends who've worked in industry
especially organic synthetic I think the
big companies the big pharma companies,
if you want to progress in that company
you can get a job with a lower
level of qualification, but if you have a
PhD you show that you can do project
management which is a really really
vital skill to move up in a company like
that, and and so yeah, so those research
skills and those project management
skills that you get from your PhD help
a lot in industry I think. Can you tell
me more about that project management
side of it? Yeah it's something that
you develop kind of organically although
you can do training during your PhD and
it's to do with being able to plan a
project and organize your time
effectively, but also organise your
interactions with other people because
naturally you won't do things completely
alone you'll need things from other
people,
compounds instruments being able to have
a sort of overview of your work but at
the same time be in your work enough to
know what the next steps are. What might
you say to a Master's student who is
feeling like their project management
skills might not quite be up to scratch
to start a PhD? That's okay at the
beginning of your PhD you are not
expected to have these skills these are
definitely things that you develop as
you go through the three or four or however
many years you have for your PhD and you
can do training and that's really
recommended. Terrific, okay, who would like
to volunteer a second good reason for
doing a PhD? So I think if you're
interested in research I think that is
one of the best reasons to do and that
touches on what you said before but I
think if you enjoy your
research project in your final year of
your undergraduate or if you do a taught
Master's postgraduate or Masters research project if you enjoy that
research even if the area isn't the area
you want to stay in, if you enjoy doing
that day to day, that's what
you'll be doing day to day in your PhD
so that's a really good reason to
want to do PhD, a love of research? Yes.
Okay so who'd like to volunteer a third
good reason for doing a PhD? I can tell
you why I did a PhD... yeah... I was working
at the RSC which is not lab-based. I
was working with the publishing arm of the
Royal Society of Chemistry so on
scientific journals and editing, and I
was very into science because I was
surrounded by it all the time but I really
missed being in the lab so I  knew
that if I want to get a job in chemistry,
because I've been out of the lab for a
few years, I needed to hone my skills and
so either a taught Master's or a PhD was
probably the way to go for me, so that's
what I did. How did you find that
transition going back into the lab after
a few years out? It was challenging, it was I
think it's challenging for anyone
anyway the transition from going from
Master's or whatever to
a PhD but for me it was slightly harder
because I had to remember a lot of
things that I'd forgotten, but it was all
in there somewhere, so after a few months
I was sort of back to the same level as
everyone else. Okay Stephen, why did you do
a PhD?
Well actually I'd signed up to an
MSc in chemistry because I wanted to do
the four-year course and I wanted to be
a chemist I just actually I wasn't
thinking too much about it early on if
I'm brutally honest, but I just liked
chemistry and during my Master's I
realised that I really enjoyed the
research involved. I thought actually I
can do this a bit more I think deep down
I wanted to go into some sort of
teaching base role but I realised as
Anna said with industry that if you want
the more senior roles it's really good
idea to have a PhD so it was a
combination really of tactical thinking
of my career and enjoying the research
as well and it was really good. It's one
the best things I ever did actually.
well that sounds terrific okay so we've
talked a little bit about good reasons
for doing a PhD as well as your own
respective motivations what are the bad
reasons for doing a PhD? I think the
worst possible reason for doing a PhD is
just that you haven't got anything to do
and you're using it to fill the time
between finishing your degree and
getting a job.
the reason it's a really bad decision is
that you're not motivated you need to be
motivated to do a PhD and as I mentioned
earlier there's that concept of the
second year blues and if that kicks in
you won't know what to do. from personal
experience I've known people drop out of
doing a PhD because they were doing it
just to fill in the gap. it seemed like
easy money. you get a certain amount of
money for doing it and then the heart
wasn't in it so they they dropped out. so
I'm getting a sense that motivation is a
really key part of needing to do a PhD
well why is it such an important thing?
because it's a long old slog to get your
PhD and one of the things they kind of
tell you as you're doing it is if you
can stay till the end, if you keep
working in you keep
going in, stay to the end you'll get your
PhD, and a lot of people will think oh
I'm not clever enough or oh I don't have
the talent but it's not really about
that because you develop all of the
skills that you need by just doing it
every day and staying in it so it can be
very difficult to motivate yourself for
three years in a row to do the
essentially the same project it it may
move around a bit but you have to it is
your PhD and at the end you're the only
person who can make it happen and you
have to produce the results so it's very
much the onus is very much on you. There's
support around you but it's your project
and you have to have the motivation to
continue with it. so am I potentially
right in interpreting that as maybe the
most successful PhDs are those who
commit to the process of research? yeah I
think probably the most successful PhDss that I know are people who are really
passionate about what they're doing so
for them it's not really hard work to
stay in it because they're loving what
they do every day and my my own
experience was that sometimes I loved it
and sometimes I found it really really
challenging and I had to have self
motivation to get keep going through
those periods where I wasn't sure if it
was right for me or if I had it in me to
continue so I yeah I think if you love
what you're doing it's very easy yeah.
okay so love and passion or two words
I find really really interesting in what
you just said I guess there's going to be a
part of this PhD student population who
will come in with a sense of passion for
a particular research area, there are
going to be some who don't. Is there
scope within the PhD process to fall in
love with a research area oh definitely
and I think we've all seen that and I
fell in love with my research area I
didn't know so much about it when I
first started and there were times
when I didn't understand it or I didn't
I didn't totally believe in it but when
you get a good result after months and
months of trying you get that good
result
it just feels amazing there's nothing
like it you feel so achieved and you're
also doing something
no one's ever done before it's really
really addictive in a way and yes it
really drives your passion and your
motivation. Anything to add to
that Stephen? well just to say that when
we talk about areas of research it
depends how big your umbrella is so you
can just to build on what Anna said you
can fall in love with it during your PhD
because while it might be linked in some
way to what you did in your Master's it
might there's still quite a lot of
difference and my Master's my PhD and my
postdoc were all loosely linked but also different and you know you
get you just get infected with everyone
else's enthusiasm as well and especially
if the the group has a really good vibe
as well you kind of want to represent
them well and you make sure that
everything you present is good and that
you get good results. lovely okay so what
might the second bad reason for doing a
PhD be? I think probably a bad reason to
start doing a PhD is to specifically
become a professor and the reason I say
that is that academia isn't an enormous
field to work i,n it's quite big but
the number of PhD students, the ratio
between PhD students and actual
academics working in the field
that's pretty enormous not all PhD
students will become professors and it's
really good to know that when you start,
having a PhD is a great stepping stone
to other careers but if you, and if
you're very very dedicated and there is
a little bit of luck and you have a
great support network and great mentors
you may become a professor but it is not
a guaranteed career so I think that can,
that could be a bit of a difficult
reason to become to do a PhD I think
that's a really interesting point in
some research that I've been looking at
it's quoted as low as a 0.6 percent
chance of converting a PhD into a
professorial role. you mentioned the role
of mentors there Anna could you
elaborate for me please?
sure so during your PhD you will have or
if you study at UCL in the chemistry
department you will have a mentor who
will be another PhD student who is one
or two years ahead of you in their
research but you also have informal
mentors all around you so are the PhD
students other postdocs people in
the department that you know your
supervisor in some ways you have a
second supervisor who you may find
mentoring you people who give you
support basicall.y okay so do we have
third bad reason for doing a PhD? I
suppose it's kind of linked to what I
said about just filling in a gap and not
doing a job but the other thing you
might think is oh it's easy money what
you get in the UK is a stipend which is
a tax-free set amount of money which I
think it's paid quarterly at the
moment and that's going to be around
15,000 pounds but if you're just in it
for just the money I would say that the
passion isn't there and therefore you
might again struggle to succeed in doing
a PhD yes I would agree with that I have
to say that when it was some years ago
but when I started my PhD I had come
from full-time employment in a graduate
role and I only took maybe about 150 200
pound a month pay-cut because you're not
taxed on the stipend so if you work out
monthly it wasn't a massive cut and I
was able to get student discount which
helped me a bit but it's not a lot
to earn for three or four years so it's
not yeah it's not a way to get money
it's definitely something you should do
for the right motivation. okay so you're
still going to be living a student or a
studenty type lifestyle on that budget?
definitely I think it's worth pointing
out actually that in the UK PhD students
are just that they're students and
they're still classed as such so you can
get all of the student benefits, if you
go abroad however you're treated more as
a worker so you'll pay tax
maybe you feel differently about that
but you certainly won't get the student
discounts
so it's like a proper, in inverted commas 'job'
abroad okay and what would
you say to a candidate who wants to do a
PhD so that they can have the word
'doctor' in front of their name? it's a
very long time to get your PhD it's a
lot of time and effort to put in to just
get two letters in front of your name
and three letters after your name I
would say that you may live to regret
that decision during the period of your
PhD unless you learn to love it that's a
different thing I think if you were to
put that in a nutshell it would be you
earn your title. what does that mean? that
means you put the work in you earn it
it's not it's not something you can just
coast on and I'm sure we've made that
apparent certainly from what Anna's just
said so you really do earn that title.
okay so we're going to talk now about
emotional well-being during a PhD a more
personal side of doing a PhD so
completing a PhD is no doubt a task of
attrition focus and at times one of
relative isolation doubt and pressure
which can definitely affect mental
health. how would you describe the
pressures of doing a PhD and to what
extent can a PhD student mitigate those
pressures? it was certainly very
challenging trying to keep on top of a
lot of the deadlines for example you
will probably have a weekly meeting with
your supervisor at which you're expected
to show what you've done during that
week and any results you've got and
sometimes not necessarily through a
fault of my own or whether it was a
fault of my own it sometimes was I didn't
have anything concrete to show my
supervisor and that stressed me out made
me feel quite anxious and well to
mitigate that I either made sure if it
was just gonna be a five minutes NMR to
measure or something I just made sure I
would do it I didn't at first but I
that's something I grew into to make
sure that I was more efficient and if I
genuinely didn't have anything I made
sure I had a good reason
why not, in my case personally I also had
the additional pressure of being
sponsored by an industrial company so I
had a case award which meant I got a
little bit of extra money on my stipend
but that meant having regular meetings
with them and explaining what had
happened and as they're industrial rather
than research they sometimes wanted
results
now-now-now which isn't always possible
in research but I just worked with my
supervisor to see how we could best put
it to them and I often remember them
saying that they were coming down on the
train they are well 'we're going to have
words with them' and then they were
always leaving that 'oh that's really
good actually'
so we work together to make sure that we
could satisfy them as well and that
helps a little bit. would you say the
main relationship in a PhD is with the
supervisor? depends I would say
yes okay it's probably the main in the
sense that you see them most frequently
and they are your boss if you want to
use that term but the postdocs in the
group will inevitably be a very
important relationship that will help
you with things as we've said your
academic family other PhD students and Master's students even will also be there
you form a little community usually and
that helps a lot mitigate any problems
you have like if you're stressed out
about something you might go to your
academic brother as I have and whinge and
that sometimes just doing that can help
these things have been I certainly found
that I definitely agree with that I
think a lot of the time when you're
doing a PhD you do feel a bit alone
because like I said before your your
project is your own and sometimes you
have a large group sometimes you don't
and you can feel a little isolated but
as soon as you speak to any other PhD
students or even postdocs who were
recently actually students you'll
realise that everybody feels the same
anxieties and the same pressures and
you're not alone and that everything
will be fine everything will be okay
eventually you will just overcome
whatever strife you're you're struggling
with
you will just get to the end of the PhD.
also I would say add to your point about
and supervisors definitely for me and I
think for a lot of my cohort it might
not necessarily be such a close contact.
I didn't actually have weekly meetings
with mine but it was definitely the most
significant relationship that I had
during my PhD and something that can be
sometimes difficult to manage depending
on because it's all personalities so
just depends sometimes your
supervisor can be a little bit difficult
to work with it depends on who they are
but you can actually get support with
that so UCL run specific training on how
to manage your relationship with your
supervisor so if you have any any
difficulties or you're just trying to
improve your general skill-set then
that's something that you can do. how
malleable is that relationship so for
example Stephen you mentioned meeting
with your supervisor once weekly and Anna
you mentioned it was potentially less
frequently who decides that process? the
supervisor I would say it depends on
them depends on what their personality
is a little bit so if they are
a bit more open maybe you'll
decide together but a lot of supervisors
will have had many PhD students and
they'll have their own way of working
that they find most efficient or works
with their timetable the best, so you
tend to fit in around what works for
them and kind of you're training from them
you're learning from them so if it works
for them probably it will work for you
if you just go along with it.
I get that deadlines are potentially another
source of anxiety and that's something
you referenced earlier Stephen, how do
deadlines work within a PhD structure?
the deadlines you might have well if you
have a meeting with your supervisor that
is a deadline in effect that you might
set yourself even that I must have this
to show them and this to show them it's
at UCL certainly the deadlines are your
first-year report which goes with your
first year viva which I'm almost
tempted to call a chat because that's
probably more like what it is
you'll also have a report that goes
along with your upgrade viva in year two
so that will be a certain deadline other
deadlines might include getting your
external examiner nominated even and
just declaring when you're going to
submit your thesis and the thesis is a
deadline I suppose but experience tells
me that's quite flexible but it also
depends on the funding, if you don't want
to be writing your thesis
when you're not funded you'll probably
want to be finished by the end of your
funding period as well. okay so I'm
tempted to ask a somewhat controversial
question because I feel our listenership
may benefit from that, what would you say
to those people who think that negative
impacts on mental health are an
inevitable part of a PhD? I would say
that it's person dependent and project
dependent. certainly I have seen many of
my fellow PhD students have moments and
periods of time where they had struggled
with mental health maybe depression or
anxiety and so myself as well included
but I have also had students who have
had very little by way of anxiety
because of kind of who they are and in
some ways and their project went very
well and they had relaxed supervisor.
there can be so many different factors
that affect your experience I think Anna
summed it up quite well it is very
person dependent and if you're maybe
more prone to being affected by certain
things like maybe you don't deal with
confrontation well that might happen if
you argue over equipment so then it
might affect you,
but things do get better and if you do
feel that you're suffering from
ill mental health, UCL does have
counselling service and other support
services in place and any other
institutions probably have the same
as well certainly in the UK I think if
you know that you have the potential to
become anxious or suffer sometimes with
depression or anxiety when you start
your PhD, it's not a bad idea to
investigate what support is available at
your University and here at UCL they
offer some really good courses on stress
management, I've done almost all of them
I can really recommend that if you tool
yourself up if you become sort of if you
develop those skills that will really
help you with your PhD. so in hearing
about this Anna,
I'm almost imagining a pathway for a PhD
student where they're concentrating on
their research but they're also
concentrating on another pathway which
is developing supplementary skills that
may be important to them? definitely yes
and fantastically there is an enormous
provision actually a UCL of training
that you can do for free which as I have
experienced if you're in the outside
world doing a job in a company you
have to pay for that kind of training
you have to lots of money actually for
the kind of training that we offer for
free at UCL even things like project
management that costs tons of money
actually so yeah it's a wonderful
opportunity to develop yourself and your
CV. okay so in the next section we're
going to be talking about the process of
applying to a PhD. now in a conversation
we had before we started recording,
Stephen, Anna, you mentioned somewhat
diverse experiences of applying to your
own PhDs
Stephen why don't you talk us through
your process... well mine was quite
straightforward in that I was doing my
fourth year Master's project and I
decided through that research that yeah
I would like to do a PhD because I like
the research so I asked my supervisor
and she said well actually I have this
PhD I'm writing the funding proposal for
and it can really help PhD supervisors
if they have someone in mind to do it
because it shows the funding body it's a
slightly more certain thing, so I said
yes I'm going to do that then and that
was it really
I charmed my away into it, talk your way
into it whatever but you've got to show
enthusiasm and yeah you can you can help
your supervisor and they can help you in
that respect. Why do you think that
worked out so relatively easily? because
my supervisor was aware of my competence
in the lab I think that was definitely
helpful and she said well you can
clearly do this I think the chemistry is
a bit more challenging going from P
block to transition metals but you've
got these skills from doing the Master's
you will develop them further so that's
great if they know I've got someone in
place I'm probably more likely to get
the funding it's the case award with
this company as well it not only looks
good on their part and I think that's
how it worked out. And was the
supervisor already aware of your desire
to pursue research? yes. okay Anna how
about your experience? well as I've
alluded to already I didn't go straight
from my Master's into a PhD which is
probably the normal way of doing it. I
was a little bit unusual
although plenty of people do what I what
I did so because I wasn't working at
university I wasn't doing a degree at
the time when I was looking for a PhD I
looked around online I knew that I
wanted to do inorganic chemistry so I
knew the field that I wanted to work in
and I basically looked at researchers'
pages to see what research they were
doing and then I contacted people
I personally just emailed them and said hi
I'm interested in the work that you do
I'd like to do PhD have you got any
openings, very very sort of prospective
very like there was no particular
jobs I was applying for, I was just
asking people. how did it feel to send
those emails? it worked well for me because
I was still working at the time I
still wasn't sure if I was going to get
a PhD position I was quite worried if
anyone would actually take a chance on
me
so it didn't exactly feel real I wasn't
really sure if anyone would say yes,
it was still quite safe in a way so I
didn't mind being quite open with people.
I was very open about my situation and
and I so when I was offered a sort of
offered a position I went through an
interview process with like a proper
interview panel and they really grilled
me so in the end when they gave me the
PhD position I felt like I'd earned it.
I'm gonna take you back a step please
Anna so what was the path like between
sending that email to getting in that
interview? so I sent the email and the
response I received was you sound like
you have the right skill-set and I do
have some projects coming up that I'm
looking for funding for, but there
are a couple of other students who are
also interested so let's see how it
develops. so it did take a little bit of
time because getting funding takes time
and there were other students
involved so that's so we went through
this interview process which was it's
yeah that was interesting I had to
present on my undergraduate Master's
research which I had I was like two
three years after doing, so was I had to
remember a lot. what would you say to
those who are potentially thinking of
taking time out between their Master's
and their PhD? I think it can be really
beneficial because if you go straight
into a PhD and your heart really isn't
in it then as we've spoken about before
you will lack the motivation to see you
through to the end and you may find it
quite difficult. I didn't really know I
wanted to do at the end of my Master's
degree so I searched around for a bit,
did a couple of different things I
traveled, I worked in publishing and then
I really knew that I wanted to do a PhD.
I was certain so when I went into it I
had the motivation to do the work it
required and I think mature students
which I was even I was like 26 mature
students and can sometimes be slightly
more serious about their work they can
be that they're not looking for the
student experience - it's not a
continuous experience from Master's
so maybe they're a bit more focused on
what they're doing because they have
such a goal in mind. okay so those are
two really interesting approaches to
getting a PhD
what other processes and approaches are
there? well if if I could put my careers
hat on there obviously
just for completeness there's the
direct route that I took and just
discussed it straight with a staff
member that knew me or there's Anna's
route where she took a break and then
saw what was out there probably the main
thing you could do is to look directly
at departmental websites if you don't
want to approach the staff member they
often advertise which PhD positions they
have and then you apply for that and go
through as Anna had done so the
interview process which may or may not
involve a presentation of previous
research you can also look on various
jobs websites such as jobs.ac.uk
and that's worth signing up to actually
if you can get these sort of weekly
emails of jobs in your area that you're
interested in and that's how I got my
postdoc, or other things, you approached
staff directly or if you're really
focused what you could do is even write
your own research proposal which is
unchartered territory for a lot of
people and then approach the supervisor:
will you support me in this and
supervise me, and what I'm thinking about
are some of the international schemes
that you can apply to such as Marie Curie,
you've got an idea you can take it
yourself that is based in Europe and
they pay quite well though how would
someone go about writing their own
research proposal? first thing I would do
is make sure I understood what goes in
there which might mean I need to get
some training on it often universities
will provide some sort of training at
this stage you're probably still an
undergraduate student which is why you
would have to be extremely dedicated or
have a really good idea maybe from your
Master's to do it, research proposals will
often involve literature reviews so what
is the current state of the art and what
impact can you make with your project.
they'll often ask you to provide
milestones so what do you expect to have
done and by when and of course they want
to know that you have a supervisor in an
institution that is prepared
to supervise you over that for a PhD. a
lot of the forms can just be found
online of the various websites and I
think it's well worth having a look
through and then reading the
accompanying notes. if you feel it might
be too much for you then by all means
you can go down the other routes as well
so it's for really ambitious people. okay
so I get there are loads of different
variations, if someone was to ask and I'm
going to use air quotes here 'what's the
normal way of applying for a PhD?' is
there such a thing? normal is what you
know, I would argue, it's just talking to
your supervisor
I suppose probably if I'm thinking more
internationally here it would be as if
you were applying for a job so you would
see the advert either on departmental
website or on a separate website and you
would just apply for it. make sure you
have an academic cv ready and you might
be required to write a personal
statement or a cover letter explaining
why you fit that role and make sure you
tick all the essentials boxes if they
have those. terrific and in one sentence
Stephen what is an academic cv? I can give
you one word: long, an academic CV is
different from standard CV in the sense
that you can go over the two pages it
basically includes your general CV but
also a list of publications you've had a
list of presentations you've made at
conferences and this is why it can go on
and on and on particularly when you get
to more senior levels in academia and
you could probably write a book from your
CV but for example in my case by the
time I finished my postdoc it was seven
pages of A4 long, Anna there's a furrowed
brow there, what are you thinking? I was
amazed seven pages well I don't think I
ever wrote an academic cv because I was
I was offered my postdoc informally and
then didn't so I applied for funding
with my supervisor didn't have to
actually give her a CV in oh no maybe I
did actually I gave my CV my postdoc was
an informal application so up until
coming back to the UK after the
Netherlands I admit I've been really
lucky with my
positions but it's certainly
whatever you're doing worth having a CV
as a working document and if you're not
sure both an academic and a standard one
an academic one will be longer because
you probably need to go into a bit more
detail about each position you've done
the research and the skills you've done
in it. one last thing I want to hit on
before moving on
from the process of applying to a PhD,
and I'm aware neither of you might have
done this so correct me if I'm wrong, the
personal statement or the motivational
letter whatever you want to call it, what
do you think works well in that document?
I would say show that you've understood
what the PhD involves in terms of the
research topic so look through the
advert you know underline some key words
and in your personal statement slash
cover letter make sure that you say I've
done this, this relates very strongly to
this and I therefore feel I could do
this part of the research show
enthusiasm you're not likely to be
snapped up if you just sound bored. if
there is a list of you need to have,
these tasks of these skills rather make
sure that you give an example of how
you've used each one and how capable you
are, they've given you the answers you've
just got to pick them out and just make
it into a nice brief document, often one
to two sides of a four it varies
depending on the position great how
would you describe showing enthusiasm?
try to vary your sentences a bit more
make it less like a list use what use
enthusiastic words like exciting or I
felt very motivated by this I want to do
this it's much better than saying I did
this I did that I did this. I agree I
love those words and I think it's really
engaging to see the words passion
excitement. it's totally fine to use
those on motivational letters I love
seeing them. alright so I'd like to move
on now to the costs associated with
doing a PhD, what are your views on this?
well it kind of depends on the area you
work in so in chemistry and most
physical sciences we
have fully funded or part funded but
more more realistically fully funded PhD
positions because the materials that we
work with the chemicals the equipment
they're really expensive so it would be
impossible to self fund or very unlikely
to self fund a PhD position but if you
are in the Social Sciences it's actually
way more common to self-fund
or have a part funded PhD where you
support yourself because you don't have
those overheads you don't have those
costs and there's less funding available
in those areas. Does supporting
yourself look like teaching posts? yeah
so like even in the chemistry department
we offer opportunities for PhD students
to earn more money and I know they do in
other departments so it can be teaching,
demonstrating in the undergraduate labs
doing marking there can be
open days for the department which you
help out for we also have some outreach
opportunities which are funded and yet
you can be paid for so all of that
happens for chemists on top of their PhD
site stipends which are paid quarterly. you mentioned outreach
opportunities could you elaborate there
for me? yes well actually I
coordinate the spectroscopy in a
suitcase outreach project which is
funded by the Royal Society of Chemistry
and basically it's a series of workshops
that students deliver so PhD students
and undergraduates to college level
students so normally 16 or 17 year olds
and they bring a spectrometer in a
suitcase to those schools and we pay for
that travel and everything and they
basically give a nice presentation on IR
spectroscopy and mass spectrometry
and they then help the students to use
the IR spectrometer that they bring and
it's quite fun and it doesn't last
that long and then you get paid for the
privilege. sounds like there's quite a
number of ways you can supplement your
income.
absolutely, and speaking of supplementing
your income I would probably suggest
that be careful in what you pick and
don't overdo it because the PhD is
essentially a full-time job and the
supplementary stuff that Anna was talking
about kind of slots nicely into it but
if you're think of doing a weekend job in a bar at the same
time I would strongly advise that you
don't unless you don't require sleep!
Stephen you mentioned the full-time job
aspect I think that's a really
interesting one because I've heard of
some people who treat their PhD as a
job who come in between 9:00 to 5:00
albeit that's quite a rare occurrence
what is your experience of potentially
well potentially your own experience
potentially other researchers around you
of I guess time management of PhDs can
it bleed into other parts of your life
what works?
again it's very person dependent for me
I found it somewhat difficult with the
synthetic chemistry PhD to stick to 9:00
to 5:00 sometimes required coming in
earlier sometimes it required leaving
later hopefully not both on the same day
but I'm not going to say that didn't
happen and I tried to balance it out
elsewhere but for me it did kind of take
over my life because I found that in the
evenings when I was at home I was
reading papers to try to catch up with
the literature because if
you're in a fume cupboard all day doing
your reactions you don't necessarily get
the same the time to sit down but that
said if you were running a long reaction
you could be a little bit more relaxed
during the middle of the day not to say
doing nothing but just take it a bit
easier otherwise it  might have gone on
top of me a little bit. okay and what was
your experience like on that front Anna? I did
not treat it like a nine-to-five job I
think that part of that was because I
had had a nine-to-five job and I found
that somewhat restrictive I'm more productive in the afternoons
and evening times and my work tended to
shift my pattern of work tended to shift
so I wouldn't be in very early but
I would tend to be
leaving a little bit later than some
other people and as Stephen said
sometimes the reaction will last longer
than an eight-hour day
and sometimes the reaction will be
much shorter than you expected and you
don't have anything else going on that
day and there's a great exhibition down the
road and what's wonderful about PhD is
you can be so flexible you have access
to the department almost 24 hours 365
days a year almost so and you're the
boss of your time as long as you're safe
so obviously there always has to be
somebody else in the building and if
you're in the lab somebody else in the
lab yeah I think ultimately if the work
gets done it's fine.
you can generally dictate your own hours
but it might also depend a little bit on
your supervisor if for example I was
aware of one occasion where lots of
people were just not in when the
supervisor was coming up to the lab so
then went and said I expect everyone to
be in core hours which is 10:00 to 4:00.
you've got to make the most of your time
with your supervisor as well again it
completely depends on your situation.
okay so I'm just going to mention one last
thing on this topic and that's the
Grant's register it's a gigantic blue
book it sits in the UCL library as well
as UCL careers department and it is an
utterly comprehensive list of
postgraduate funding options from small
charities to bursaries all the way up to
the giant research grants so if you're
unsure of different ways of funding your
study or you want access to other
supplemental means it's a great thing to
check out.
so before we sign out are there any
other things that either of you would
like to mention when weighing up whether
or not to do a PhD? I would say it's
great if you have a career in mind when
you start you may not end up going into
that career I didn't I wanted to go into
industry and actually I've become a
teacher, I'm a teaching fellow at UCL but
I think you should be mindful of your
future as you're going through your PhD
and to not see a PhD as three or four
years where you don't have to think
about your career
you're setting yourself
up for a bit of a tough time when you
finish so definitely bear careers in
mind. Stephen? it's an opportunity to
build up your CV and it's not just about
doing the research is also about
building your network and getting known
more widely throughout that particular
research community because you've got to
be thinking about your career and that
will help you as well so things like
LinkedIn can really help get on there
and maybe be a little bit shameless if
you're looking for a job you can put
that on there but you've got to get
people to know you first so while you're
doing a PhD you can use that. I'm aware
of a lot of PhD students on Twitter who
are tweeting every step of their PhD and
that gets them noticed as well so that's
also something to think about. alright so
thank you both for joining me for this
podcast on should I do a PhD or not, so
last thing, what if students want to know
more about this topic should I do a PhD,
what would you recommend? well we do have
rather wonderful one-to-one chemistry
appointments with Raj so if you're not
sure about something or just want advice
on something I can really recommend just
booking an appointment and having a
chat we've had some amazing feedback
from the students about those who have
been to them so I can highly recommend
that so if you're currently a student at
UCL you have a wealth of academics all
around you so it's a great idea to go
and speak to your personal tutor maybe
make an appointment with someone else in
the area of research that you might want
to go into and you can even speak to PhD
students who are currently doing it so
find out what it's like day-to-day. how
approachable would you say they are?
yeah pretty approachable generally
pretty approachable so I'm going to sign
out by reiterating Stephen's earlier
point that you have access to one-to-one
chemistry careers appointments, they're
available through a link on Moodle. I
personally would love to see you for a
careers appointment if you're thinking
about doing a PhD or you're weighing up
options or even if you're directly in
between a yes and a no on a PhD. I'm not
going to tell you what to do, I'm not going to
give you any suggestions it's going to
be a case of asking you open questions
that will hopefully lead you to your own
realisation of whether it's the right
step for you or not. hopefully this
podcast has been useful, we've loved
recording it for you. all the best
