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.

How I started my PhD at Hasselt University

After a very long day with administrative work, I received an e-mail on August 29, 2018, regarding a Skype interview for a PhD position which I applied only a few days ago and the deadline was just a day before. I was surprised by the speed of feedback and the welcoming e-mail. The interview was scheduled for a week later.

On September 4, 2018, I had an interview with 2 young professors. They both were super friendly and welcoming. We spoke about technical things as well some nontechnical things. My interview went very good, I was feeling very confident and relaxed. For once, I felt like I said everything I needed to and was myself. At that time, I already was confirmed to Celal Bayar University, where I pursued my bachelors. I also mentioned that during my interview and asked them when to expect to hear from them. They said I will hear from them on the coming Friday which was September 7, 2018.

Around 11 AM on September 7, 2018, I got the good news. I was in tears after the e-mail since I was waiting for such a position. Since then, I am very motivated to work on a PhD with my current colleagues and promoters at Hasselt University.

I will be sharing my previous interviews and details about how it went.

Hasselt University

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/University_of_Hasselt

The University I am pursuing my PhD in, Hasselt University. It is located in Hasselt, Belgium which is a city in Eastern Belgium.

Even though I found Hasselt University in a common academic job web page, after searching about it, I found that it has some very strong research groups. The group I am a member of, call Construction Engineering Research Group is one of them.

Even though I am only enrolled for 6 months, I cannot imagine a better work and research environment. The structure of a PhD is very fulfilling. As part of the PhD program, as a student, you're involved in doctoral schools, which has certain requirements you need to fulfil within the time of PhD. Some of these requirements are non-technical skills such as ethics, communication etc, however, some are very useful practice requirements such as a min number of publication requirements, conference requirements, teaching assignments etc.

As the first female PhD student, I am working towards accomplishing my goals and providing service to the university.

Here is a link to the University vacancy page, if anyone is interested.

Volunteering in a conference in your undergrad

I remember my freshman (1st) year in bachelors. All we cared about was passing the classes and enjoying free lessons. None of us had what to do after school, and none of us cared either since we had more than 3 years.

On my sophomore (2nd) year, I was going through some family financial problems which lead me to take charge of my life and start earning. At that time, and after having a terrible site summer internship, I thought going into academia was easiest and best path for me.

My passion and hard work helped me get a position and research funding. Beside my research work my advisor encouraged me to volunteer in 1 national and 1 international conference. Here is how my experience went;

1. In the international conference, I met a professor who then became part of my MSc committee in Texas A&M.

2. All faculty from my school recognized me and I built my very first academic network. This network later helped me getting references and getting paper work done easily. Besides that, every time something national or international was going on, I was one of the first students they called to.

3. During the national conference I met many recognized researchers, and one ended up being coworker of my dad from the 90's. You can guess how it helped me stand out in crowd.

4. I learned the research technical slang before even getting bachelors degree.

5. The vision and mission of the conferences motivated me to move forward in hard time in academia.

6. Never paid to attend those conferences and during technical sessions, I could attend the ones I like.

7. Got the goodies bag along with published papers.

These being said, I highly recommend every undergraduate student to take part in such conferences. I believe all academics and graduate students should help young researchers get involved as soon as possible. I think this is the strongest way to get students get involved in research.

ME vs MSc

This was one of the biggest confusions all my classmates had when we started grad school in Texas A&M University.

ME (Master's of Engineering) is master's degree with no research and thesis involved. More classes are required for graduation and an extra design course is taken. A supervisor is required only to guide for which courses should be taken.

MSc (Master's of Science) is master's degree with research and master's thesis being required. A number of classes are required but not as much as an ME degree. A supervisor for research thesis is required.

Advantages of ME

- More advanced classes are taken.
- Preferred option for industry engineers.
- Sooner graduation.

Disadvantages of ME

- Not accepted for PhD applications in most of the countries.
- No research experience is gained.
- Reading and writing skills are not necessarily improved.

Advantages of MSc

- Research is introduced. It is usually in form of case study supported with literature review.
- Preferred for industry firms which has research and development development.
- Research related delays in graduation may occur.
- Writing skills are improved.
- Solid knowledge on literature review process.

Disadvantages of MSc

- Literature review can be challanging and overwhelming time to time.
- If there is no specific project, finding a gap in literature can be tough.
- Funding is needed even for an analytical research project.

At the end of the day, it is out decisions that make us who we are. Sometimes what we think is best is not best for us. I highly recommend an MSc degree if time and funding are not an issue. In close future it may open more doors.

How I became a Book Person after my Master's Thesis

I am not writing to set a bad example. All my childhood my parents tried to make me a book person. Both of my parents are educated and they read on regular basis. I just didn't like letters and reading. I strongly (and still) preferred numbers over letters. I was also okay reading for classes, I loved doing homework and it was part of the process, I believed.

In Turkey, to go to university everyone has to take a public exam. This exam included Turkish (reading), maths, science in beginner level (for high school) and depending on what major you want to choose you have to take another exam which includes all material, in my case it was 4 years worth of maths and science. However, to do overall well, I needed a decent reading grade. That year while I was preparing for the exam, I was reading minimum 15 minutes a day. I did better than I thought and got into my dream degree program, civil engineering.

Civil engineering program didn't involve too much reading and I read only books of my interest (not sure how many a year though). Even though I got involved in research during my undergrad, I don't remember having to read too much. I was only given material that I directly needed to use and understand. When it came to masters, things changed. Guess what was my advisors first comment on my research topic? Go through the literature and find a gap, use keyworks X,Y and Z. TA-DAA, yes I spent almost a year 90% just reading for my thesis proposal. At the end of a year, it helped me so much that I could write my thesis in less than 3 months.

Since then I really appreciate how further reading has taken me. I am still not a book worm, but I do read everyday even if it is only for 10 minutes. I don't think there is too much to worry when you don't like reading, since you don't really know what you are missing. But once you "have" to read, things change in a way that nothing can stop you from reading. And my personal advise is "write as much as you read or read as much as you write".

Publishing a Paper from your Master's Thesis Part:1

This was an unsolved question on my mind since graduation (Dec 2016). I had few weeks after my defense where I could just write it and get over with it. Instead I chose to party because those were my last days in College Station, Texas and I may not see my friends soon. I do not regret not writing my paper that time, most probably I was not ready to go under another big responsibility such soon and I was dealing with moving, changing continents, culture shock etc.

Months started passing by and my main motivation of not finishing my paper was my advisor was switching jobs and he would never have time to review it. Once you are at an industry job, time passes very fast and you barely know where life is taking you until you came to a point that you are no longer happy where you are. I am not sure if or when I am going back to school, but one thing I know for sure is I am a better person at research than an industry job. I prefer to just stay at a corner and get my work done with less interaction as possible.

Now when I look at my resume/CV I see that gap of not having such a unique line on it. I love the saying "better late than never" so I am back at it. The main question on my mind was, is it really possible to publish from master's thesis. Will I be repeating myself? What are the limitations? I am currently working on these questions and as soon as I find the answers I will share them here along with challanges I faced.