Struggles of 1st year of PhD

After a week, I will complete my 1^st year into my PhD program. A lot has happened during this year. I did a lot of work, learned many new things and had a few failures. Here are a few things I’m struggling with and would like to solve ASAP.

1. Writing

I see writing as one of my strengths. I can write for hours without getting bored (I’m the type who writes a lot and then summarizes). Recently, after my first committee meeting, I noticed that my committee members were not satisfied with the amount of writing I do. Now I’m trying to document everything for further use.

2. Time-management

My biggest struggle was, and still is, is time-management. There are so many things I want to for my PhD and there are so many things I have to do (for the department and research group as it is part of my contract). Sometimes finding a balance was very hard. Besides my academic life, I’m learning Dutch (it is a great way to show respect to the country you live in) and going to the gym 3 times a week. Time passes very fast and I’m working on a way I can be more effective. On top of all this, even though my program doesn’t require me to take classes, I have to do doctoral schools, which include attending courses or seminars on different topics. 

3. Social life

As a foreigner, it is not always easy to blend in. having the advantage of being a social introvert, I like the times spent with colleagues as well as the time I spend by myself. There is a danger in socializing with your colleagues. Even though you see them more than you see your family or friends, always keep in mind that at the end of the day they are your professional partners and you have to find the balance.

Currently, I see above mentioned 3 points as my current weaknesses and working on fixing them. As entering my second year with more confidence, I’m hoping to be more active and share my days here. What was your biggest struggle in 1st your of your PhD? 

Work smarter, not harder

There are times we all just want to get over with a task, which we know we will repeat, but still, prefer to do it the long way just to get the results. Below is one of my favourite pictures on this topic. It is clear that if we stop for a second, look back, and observe the situation, we can find an easier way to proceed further which we can re-use.

In the previous weeks, I conducted some experiments and was very excited to see the results and compare them with some examples in literature. The easiest way was to copy the results, paste them into excel and plot a graph of my interest. I filtered and worked on the data like this for almost 4 weeks. During these 4 weeks, every time I had to change or check something, I needed to open each excel, and remember the exact things I needed to conduct. Even though the latest version of excel and new computers are capable enough to handle thousands of lines of data, it was freezing very often that I had to close the task or give it some time to recover.

Last weekend, I was just very exhausted from going back and forth in different sheets (at home I do not have a second screen) so I decided to take the time to just write a Matlab code. I worked with Matlab for many years (in the following posts I will write about my weird relationship with Matlab) and knew that I could do what I wanted to do with some effort and few google pages. One other thing great about Matlab is that you get a free version if you are a student, and there are thousands of things that can be done with it.

It took me less than half an hour to write the code, import data, plot and filter. Yes, 30 minutes vs probably 6-8 hours (in total with re-plotting filtering, selecting relevant data etc). This was a great way to prove that I should just think about what would be the most efficient way, each time I have something to do.

What are your smarter ways to work more efficiently?

Learning a new language

A new country means new adventure, new places, new people, new experiences and of course, new language. Some of us don't like to get out of our comfort zone and start in a country where they speak the language, some of us like it harder. None of it is easier, however, not knowing the language is a little more challenging. Besides that the exciting adventures, new country means a lot of paperwork and it is not very easy if you don't speak the language.

I've started my PhD in November and knew that I would start a Dutch course (Hasselt University is located in the Flemish part of Belgium). I didn't want to rush for it, but also not keep on postponing it since time flies. I spoke with the international students in my research group to see how and where they were taking the courses. Usually, there are evening classes which are pretty intense but seeing my colleges speak pretty decent Dutch motivated me to start

I was told by my promoter that I was going to teach 2 classes in the Spring semester. I waited for the semester to start since it was my first time teaching and wasn't sure if I'd have enough time for activities like this.

Eventually, in late April, I started a Dutch course in the evenings. It is twice a week and approximately 4 hours each day. Yes, it is intense, but the teachers do their best (thankfully) to make it fun and easy to follow. Now that a few weeks into the language course, I started enjoying it.

There are many proven benefits of learning a new language on the brain, which is another reason to learn a new language. Since I've been attending the course, I feel like my days are more productive and I can concentrate for a longer time. In Turkish, there is a saying that "one language is one person" so the more you know, the more door it opens.

Motivation letter / Statement of purpose: Part 2: For PhD

Getting into graduate school / higher education is hard. Even though a few percentage of the University / College graduates prefer to go into grad school, due to limited paid positions, the chances of ending up in your dream institute can be challenging. Now that I am 6 months into my PhD, and after getting positive responses on my previous post on how to write motivation letter for Master's degree, I decided to write a post on tips I learned the hard way with a couple of rejections. Everyone's journey and background are different, every department has its way of selection, feel free to modify it depending on your needs.

Now that you have a master's degree and a little more research background, there may be too much to write. Even though it is always recommended to keep CVs, resumes, motivation letters as short as 1 A4 size page short, with all the experience and background, it may be hard to summarize it to 1 page. My motivation letter is a little longer than 1 page and a half.

This short description is a way to advertise yourself and catch promoters attention. I don't know how the review process goes in each department, but I would personally check the CV first and if it catches my attention, read motivation letter to see how this person describes the things they mentioned on their CV.

Here is how I structured mine;

1st paragraph I explained why I became a civil engineer and how my bachelor's degree helped me

2nd paragraph I summarized my accomplishments and projects and general skills I obtained in the master's degree

3rd paragraph I explained why I couldn't go into PhD directly (I took approximately 2 years off between my masters and PhD) and how I used this time, including brief information about my industrial job and highlighted the skills I improved that can help me get into the position I am applying for.

4th paragraph I explained how I conducted research part time because I just liked it better than my industrial job while looking for a full-time PhD.

5th paragraph summarizes why I want to go back to academia and pursue a PhD. Depending on the topic of the application I try to write a few sentences on how and why I am interested in those research areas.

The 6th paragraph is my final paragraph which I wrap up everything in the letter and give some final comments on why I can potentially be a good candidate.

Even though with 6 paragraphs I almost reach 2 pages, I wished I could write a small research interest paragraph. Depending on how relevant the topic is with your background, this paragraph can be as long as a page. After being the 3rd selected candidate for a position I really wanted, one critical comment the interviewers had was that they preferred to have a research proposal added that is relevant to the topic. After learning that, I start writing a short proposal to the positions I really wanted to get into, which I had some background.

As I mentioned, it is very hard to get a good PhD position, one thing I'd like to add is that sometimes some positions open for specific students already known by the department who proved themselves. Don't let this discourage you, but always keep it on the mind.

Is research background necessary?

We come across tons of success stories every day. The old school ones were lucky enough just to graduate from bachelor's and land their dream jobs in which they spent decades. For younger ones, it is kind of struggle to find what to do for a lifetime career since there are too many things to choose from. I can see my classmates from university and grad school switching jobs very often.

All over the world, the age to start University or College is around 18-19. At that age, we all just want to have fun and don't really care about what real life will be. On one side, it is very cruelly to put so much responsibility on one's shoulder at a very young age, on the other side, after years of changes in education systems, apparently, this is the best way for higher education.

Most of the Universities don't require their Bachelor students to be involved in the research. Only the top students are given a chance to study further and go into good research institutes and learn how to research.

As an active student, being in only top 10 in class and having chance to do research at a very early age due to my language skills, I highly believe everyone should be given a chance to discover that special way of working. It is still not required in most fields to know how to research, however, a researchers way of thinking should be crucial for critical and creative thinking.