REMARO REMARO
By Juliane Päßler and Tobias John, University of Oslo
Being a PhD student can be quite stressful—who would have guessed—and we all struggled with it at some point in our journey. As there are many different sources of stress, we also discovered different strategies to cope with it. We think that it is important to apply (some of) these strategies or find your own strategies to deal with stress. Being stressed for a long time can have a significant impact on your health and furthermore only makes your work harder and worse and your overall life suffers from it.
Getting stuck
Being in an environment with professors and postdocs that seem to understand everything while you struggle to make any progress at all can be one cause of stress. There will be times when your experimental results are underwhelming, you are fighting for days with the dependencies of libraries—we’re looking at you, ROS—or your paper got rejected from yet another conference. It is normal to panic in such situations, especially if the imaginary clock with the time that you have to finish your PhD is ticking loudly in your head. We experienced that it is important to take a step back and keep in mind that these situations are expected to happen when working as an academic. There is no reason to doubt your capabilities. Everyone fails, some people are just better at hiding it. Although it is hard, it helps to first take some rest and try to look at your problem from a different perspective. Some things will become easier if you come back to them after a few days or weeks, others might never work out. In any case, this is part of the PhD journey and struggles are often the starting point for new ideas and personal development.
Drowning in responsibilities
Another reason for stress is that the responsibilities of a PhD student pile up very fast. Like many—probably all—other PhD students before, we also got squeezed between writing papers, teaching duties, organising summer schools and many other tasks. The reasons why all the different work duties will pile up on your desk vary. Your contract specifies responsibilities, your supervisors direct you to do tasks, your friends and colleagues ask you for favours and some things just seem interesting or important to you. It is crucial to know and trust your limits when agreeing to take more responsibilities and to say “no” if you feel so. This is especially hard as all the aforementioned sources of responsibilities are hard to resist. But we believe it is one of the most important things to learn and do during your PhD journey. Saying “no” is a requirement for arranging your way of life outside the university in a way that supports you in difficult moments. Some practical advice that helped us to maintain (or regain) a healthy work-life balance are the following:
- Don’t work on weekends. If you do, and we know that you will do it eventually, you should have a strong reason to do so. Try as much as you can to keep two days off every week.
- Take time for yourself, your hobbies, your friends, your family and all the other things that bring happiness into your life. Doing a PhD does not mean that your work is the only or most important thing in your life, and being happy will also make your work better.
- Take care of your physical health. Pay attention to eating well and exercising regularly. It is easy to neglect these things in busy work weeks but you will feel more energetic and productive when taking care of your body – and your back will thank you if you move more than to the coffee machine.
Being the captain of your PhD journey
Working in an academic environment provides a lot of freedom in what and how you work. For us, this is one of the best parts of the job, so try to make the most out of it. We learned that it is important to fight for this freedom, which can involve challenging your supervisor. You should try to organise your PhD journey and it helps to create a road map to guide your work. We had to adapt our plans many times but having a plan is crucial to not get lost in the sea of opportunities. Set high goals that you would like to achieve but also accept less satisfactory outcomes. Seek to find collaborators, either through your supervisor or by contacting people whose research excites you. Most academics are more than happy if someone shows interest in their work. We had the privilege to work in a program that already provided many opportunities for collaboration, which helped a lot and showed us the value of working together with others.
Be aware, that the freedom that academia offers is only one side of the medal. The other one is that you are responsible for your work and how it turns out. If you decide with whom and on what topic you work, you also have to accept that you are responsible for the outcome. It may seem easier to be guided by others and blame them for the problems that occur, but we think you can have a much better time if you accept the risk of failing and take responsibility if things go wrong but are in charge of your PhD.
Embrace your opportunities
While piloting your way towards your PhD title, we often got so focused on our current work that it was hard to see the opportunities that were along our way. But these can be the things that make the longest-lasting impact. Our PhDs were at least three years of our life and we all developed over that time. You will have many offers to attend talks, courses, summer schools, outreach events and similar events. If you see something that catches your interest, something that seems like you can have some impact or something that will challenge your skills, do not hesitate to sign up for it. You want to improve your presentation skills? Sign up for an outreach event in a pub. You are tired of the food that your home country offers? Your colleague from the other end of the world is probably more than happy to share his or her favourite meal with you. You want to change how your university treats PhD students? There will be a PhD organisation you can join to raise your voice. These moments where you are driven by passion will be the moments where you will learn the most and you will have the most fun. We also experienced times when our PhD seemed to be only about surviving, but by embracing opportunities besides our project, we created moments that carried us through.
Besides the general advice on your PhD journey that can hopefully help you to enjoy your PhD, we also collected more specific advice in some of our other blog posts:
Disclaimer: This is a personal blog written using the input of several people. Any views or opinions represented in this blog are personal and do not represent those of people, institutions or organisations that the owner may or may not be associated with in professional or personal capacity, unless explicitly stated. Any views or opinions are not intended to malign any religion, ethnic group, club, organisation, company, or individual.