So you want a PhD: A how-to guide

You get a PhD, and you get a PhD; you ALL get a PhD!!!! Okay, it’s not quite that easy, and while the journey is tough (speaking from experience), it doesn’t have to be as overwhelming as it sometimes is for people. So how do you get a PhD, you may ask? Well, there’s no set path, and frankly, my advice is mostly tailored to the sciences in the US because that’s my area of expertise. Still, I genuinely think a bit of guidance can save people a ton of headaches. I was very lucky because I accidentally did a lot of things right, but I had no guide. If you’re here, then hopefully my little bits of wisdom will make your journey a smooth(er) one. So let’s do this!

Since I can’t help myself, let’s start with the basics! I’m a fully-fledged PhD! Wooo! It took five years; my area of study was neuroengineering, and I have a BS and MS in Mechanical Engineering because I like having sheets of paper with my name on them that I can frame and then stick in my closet (sadly, where my two other degrees live at the moment). So I’ve run the gambit of education and had my fair share of ups and downs. While neuroengineering and mechanical engineering sound very similar (both are engineering fields, after all), they are completely different. It would be like asking an electrical engineer to build a bridge, since it’s all engineering. So the transition wasn’t an easy one, and it probably added to my time in the PhD program, but it was SO worth it. 10/10; don’t regret a thing. I’ll go into why I took this path at the end of the post, maybe, but the point is I’ve been in academia a long time, roughly 15 years since undergrad took a whole 9 years (oh man, that was a hard time in life…).

Okay, you’ve decided you want to do a science-based PhD. Now what? Well, if you’re a Masters student or recent graduate, you typically have less *stuff* you need to get done between the start of your degree and the finish, so good news there! Each program has requirements you need to meet; just like your BS or MS, your PhD has its own core things you need to check off before you complete the program. However, most of the requirements are super minimal because a PhD is mostly research-based! My first piece of advice is to take a look at the school requirements! But we can go even a bit further back in the process, even with the simple fact that most of your time will be spent doing research.

Half the PhD battle is finding the right PI. What’s a PI? The PI is the principle investigator of the lab, the person in charge, and while they all hold the same title, each PI has a different style. Some PI’s are very hands-off, others are very hands-on, and some are a balance between the two. I’ve worked with very hands-off PI’s and very hands-on PI’s, and while I do prefer being independent in my studies and research, the advantage of a hands-on PI is that you get to learn firsthand, and you would be surprised how much someone who doesn’t get to do a ton of research (a PI is almost an administrative role, really, almost) can pass on to you. I’ve even had the horror pleasure of working with several at once, which was an experience. The point being, find a PI that you can see yourself working well with, no matter which style you prefer. How do you do that? Well, you can reach out to the PI, but also reach out to the students in the PI’s lab and ask them for input on how the PI operates. It’s a super easy way to find out what the students think of the PI running the lab. Need help writing a PI? I wrote a guide for that too!

The second biggest piece of advice I can offer is in two parts. Really, the first is to have an idea of what you want to do going into it. I worked with one undergrad student for four years (the wonderful Kay), and she put up with my constant harassment about finding an area of research that was narrow enough to find a good lab that fit her goal. The second part (and why this is two parts) is funding! I firmly believe that the amount of time it takes for you to start and complete your PhD is a function of how much funding you can get. Start early, start before you start the PhD program, and try to find funding for yourself.

The catch with that is that funding is often tied to a lab, so it’s a chicken and egg situation, which is why finding a good lab with a good PI and having a goal right away is important because you can start applying for grants, fellowships, etc. right away. Under no circumstances, like ever, never, never!!, should you pay a dime to get your PhD. It’s all paid for you; in fact, a PhD is a job, so you get paid (poorly). Which is why finding your own funding is important; if you don’t have funding, it will be provided for you, and attached to that funding, like any job, is work to do. So while you’ll be learning about the field you’ve just entered, you may not be doing things that directly impact your PhD. Funding is hard to get, trust me I know, but starting early will make the difference between finishing your PhD in the average amount of time (5 years) or going until you max out the time in the program (for my school, that was 10 years!).

There are roughly two types of PIs: those who are just starting and those who are established. Both will have funding through different mechanisms, and PI’s who are just starting tend to be more hands-on, while PI’s who are established have about 50 million other things going on, so you may not see them often. My school PI (school-PI in the archive posts, haha) was very established; everyone knew him, and he had several mechanisms in place to fund my PhD. We still wrote several grants; I was awarded two different fellowships, and we got one grant (out of like 6–8, I think) funded, and that’s my PhD funding story. But I saw school-PI for maybe a total of 6 months in the 5 years I was in the program because he was so busy. We talked often, and COVID played a part in that, but he had a lot going on. My other PI at the hospital where my second fellowship came in (hospital-PI) was just starting and was very hands-on. I’ve basically seen him daily, and we talk one-on-one for a couple hours a week, if not more. Both had benefits associated with where they were in their careers, and I was lucky enough to get to take advantage of my unique situation and learn from both.

The next bit of advice is more abstract, but it’s simply this: You (and I almost guarantee this) will feel like you are failing and/or are stuck, not getting anywhere in the program. I know because for 4 out of the 5 years in my PhD, I wrote daily about the journey (my 365 days of academia project), and while the last year was more once a week than daily, the feeling like I was a miserable wretch was a CONSTANT theme. Nearly every post I wrote was about how I wasn’t getting anywhere, how I was making my PI’s angry, and how I somehow tricked everyone into letting me into the room where I definitely did not belong! Basically, up until I finished, I felt like the only sure thing was that I was doing the wrong thing. It was not a fun time, so know that this is a common feeling, talk to your lab mates, make friends, have a support system (even if it’s mostly an online one, like what I did), and simply keep going.

And that’s basically it. Oh,  I guess there is one more thing. Start writing your dissertation earlier than you think you should. Trust me on this: I started several months before I finished, and even then, I felt like I wasn’t going to complete it in time. I gave myself an hour a night (nearly) to write a little bit more of it. I thought I started early enough, and by the end I was spending half days editing, writing, etc. so at least outline it, fill in as much as you can, and get the structure going, because you will end up regretting it if you put it off. A dissertation doesn’t have to be long (mine ended up being ~125ish pages, which was much longer than I wanted to be honest), but even if it isn’t long, it takes a long time to write. Trust me on that; I’m still trying to recover from the experience.

Okay so for the TL;DR group, the bullet points version in a somewhat more cohesive order:

• Narrow down your area of research enough to find a lab (it doesn’t have to be exact, movement disorders for example is narrow enough where movement may not be!)
  
• Find a PI that suites your learning style and speak with people in the lab to verify a good fit, talk to several students!
  
• Do NOT pay for your PhD. Talk funding with your prospective PI, write grants, fellowships, etc. to fund your education
  
• You will feel like a failure and/or like you are stuck during the process, a good support system is worth its weight in gold. Make friends with your lab mates or even people in the community, don’t underestimate online support too!

And that’s basically it—five years of my life lessons summed up in four bullet points.

And for those interested, I got into undergrad wanting to design better prosthetics. Which was how this blog originated. I started a not-for-profit designing and building custom one-off prosthetics for people, and I still do it from time to time, but not much these days. The switch from mechanical to neuroengineering was to facilitate learning how to better interface the prosthetic to the person, and now I’m doing research primarily to help restore function in people with spinal cord injuries. I view the shift as a natural continuation of the original goal, but with a different focus. If you had asked me what I wanted to do as a child, I would’ve told you I wanted to be a scientist. I’m happy to say that I did it, and it was worth it. I never expected to get a PhD, but I would still do it all over again if I could. It’s my honest hope that if you are just starting the PhD journey, you’ll think it was worth it when you finish too. And if, in five years or so, you think back on this post and think it was helpful, feel free to leave a comment and say hi. I’m always around, even if I don’t write as often as I used to.

Good luck!