After 18 months of being a PhD student, I thought it
was time for an update! When I first heard my contract was for three years
(which has subsequently been extended to four years if I want the fourth year),
I remember thinking that that seemed like a long time for a PhD. I don't think
that anymore. The time is passing so quickly! Overall, I am really happy in my
current position; I work as part of a great time with people who are very
willing to share their knowledge and experience and give me exciting and
challenging opportunities; I like the research we are doing and find it
interesting; I feel challenged in a stimulating and healthy way; I enjoy the
independence but also the team-work; I work in a nice environment and have
great colleagues who are also friends!
This is a long post - so if you want to know more
about what I do... then read on! If not, I understand :)
So what does an average day look like for me? Well, it
may consist of any of the following things:
- Conference and travel admin - this takes a long time! This year I will have attended four conferences and a summer school which represents a lot of time given to travel arrangements and making applications for funding.
- Attending seminars / discussions / presentations - being part of a University community means that there are plenty of presentations to attend on a variety of topics. And now, I can attend the French ones too :) I try to choose a mix - some that are directly useful for my research, and others that are just interesting to me!
- Attending team meetings - every two weeks my thesis director has a meeting with his team at which everyone gives an update of the work they are doing. This meeting is always in French, and I now participate in French too, with the option to ask for a translation if I don't understand something.
- Meeting with the post-doc on our project - we will talk about work we are currently doing (we have written some articles together, a book chapter and prepared some conference presentations together) or other aspects of our project like the data collection and preparation, writing reports, or preparing newsletters.
- Preparing presentations for conferences - this takes longer than you might think!
- Data cleaning - we receive our data from the polling institute we collaborate with, but then I need to rename variables, decide what to do about missing values and check that there are no mistakes in the data, especially with our complicated filter and classification system. This takes ages.
- Attending workshops - this year I have attended several workshops or short courses, which have mostly been about statistics (techniques and software), but also some others like preparing academic CVs.
- Coordinate the DOPE sessions - DOPE is a monthly Doctoral and Post-Doctoral Exchange session that I organize (I didn't start it, but took over from one of my colleagues a few months ago). It is an informal information exchange session between researchers in social sciences. With the participation of some other colleagues, I organize a monthly session on a relevant topic such as academic writing, conferences and summer schools, giving and receiving feedback, publishing, post-PhD options...
- Work as an editorial assistant for the LIVES working paper series - this is a publication of our research institute LIVES, and I help with editing and formatting research papers for publication.
- Assist colleagues with editing English documents - As a native English speaker, my language skills are in demand!
- Attend meetings or do work associated with ECP 17 - I am an assistant on the organizing committee for the 17th European Congress on Personality which will be held in June 2014 at the University of Lausanne (http://www3.unil.ch/wpmu/ecp17/) - up until now I have been involved in fundraising and also plan to organize an event solely for PhD's at this conference.
- Collaborating on articles with other colleagues - along with my own research, I also write papers with my colleagues as a contributing author - this means that I don't take full responsibility for the article (like I would if I was the first author), but rather just contribute to sections of the article.
- And last but not least, my own research! This includes looking for articles and doing reading, data analysis (which often includes learning new techniques and software), and writing articles. So far, all the articles I have written as a first author have been in collaboration with other researchers. Writing an article is challenging enough and includes conception, reading, writing, data collection, analysis (which is never finished the first time), more writing and reading, editing, more writing, more revisions, coordinating the contributions of co-authors, and yet more writing and revising! Once an article is ready for publication we prepare it for submission exactly according to the journal requirements and then take a chance and submit! Journals can then respond with a few types of answers; 1) desk reject - this means that you article was not sent for review and the editor decided it is not suitable for publication in that specific journal (for any number of reasons), 2) Revise and re-submit - the editor didn't send the article for review, but is requesting some modifications before deciding to send the article to be reviewed, 3) Accepted for publication with either minor / major modifications - this means that the manuscript will be published but only after changes have been made. This can take some time, especially because as an author you need to respond in detail to each and every single comment of the reviewer(s), or 4) Accepted for publication - this is the news any author wants to receive! Once an article has been accepted for publication and the necessary revisions made, it will still be sent back to you as the author during the copy-editing stage. Here it is my responsibility to check the article once more after it has been formatted for a particular journal. Only after all of this, which can take months, the article will be published. And of course, it is very likely that the first journal you submit an article to will not respond positively - I submitted my most recent publication to 6 journals before it was accepted.
- I have made the decision to try and do my PhD by article (as opposed to writing a more traditional thesis) - this means I need a minimum of 2 articles written as a first-author, plus at least 2 others as a co-author. These articles should be independent pieces of work, but should fit together as a coherent piece of work. When it comes to submit, I will take the articles I have written and combine them with an introduction and conclusion and submit all the work together. This will of course mean that although the articles will be finished, changes will need to be made with reference to how the work is presented. It is quite a challenge to balance the independence and cohesiveness aspects of preparing a thesis in this way. The articles need to be published, in press, or accepted for publication with minor revisions - this means that there is definitely pressure to be productive quickly! The final stages will be my private thesis defense, revisions, and then a public thesis defense. And then I will have my PhD!
