My PhD journey

My PhD is really though!! Everyone who has gone through with the training will agree 100%. It took about 4 years for me to complete the journey. But the substances I gained were luxury and beneficial for the rest of my life :) The training really makes me transformed to a new person. Even my BFFs agree that I've changed a lot especially in the way I throw my thoughts, the way I bring myself in front of people, the way I talk, the way I work, etc.

Well, my PhD journey is too long for me to explain but I will start from the beginning. What makes me chose my supervisor? This is the main thing a PhD candidate should consider first. Why? Because its the supervisor who greatly impact on your success or not. If the supervisor doesn't play the role as it should, you will gain nothing from the training. In fact, you may fail your PhD!! Another important factor that may impact your success is, your lab members. You need to have good relationship with your lab members because, in case you faced with technical problem in your work, these are the people that may help you in detail. Its not the supervisor that will solve the technical issues. The supervisor will just guide you. For example, if you stuck in your work, he may throw his ideas on what steps you should consider next. A good/expert supervisor will of course provides you with several options based on his readings and experiences.

The third factor is yourself. How strong are you to face with all the challenges? Are you able to control your emotions when problems appear? Problems can be anything. It can either be the PhD work itself, the problem with your supervisor or the problem with your family. Hopefully, there should be no problem with your lab members. Let me elaborate one by one based on my experience.

 (1) In your PhD work, you need to identify the research gap. Once identified, you need to list out the methods or algorithms to solve the gap based on your readings. You really need to read a lot of research papers to identify what are the strengths and weaknesses of each method. Once you identified the best solution, you need to repeat the work stated in the paper/journal. A good written journal should enable the readers to repeat the work. If its not repeatable, most probably the writer is hiding its weaknesses.

(2) You may faced some problems with your supervisor. Why? Because we are human not a robot. A supervisor can appear to be too perfectionist until you become stressed out to fulfill your supervisor's desires. Especially when you disagree with your supervisor's opinion. You cannot just object his opinion because he is your mentor and he has his ego to save his reputation. So, what should you do to maintain your thoughts and object his opinion without getting him to feel offended? This is what I did after getting advice from the seniors. I report my progress which includes my plan of solving the problem. I made him read the progress report. At certain level he will sure agree after you proof the solution by experiment etc.

(3) To be continued.