5 things I learned about completing a PhD thesis
I submitted my PhD thesis today, ending the longest and most complicated project in my life so far (that is, until I get the examiners’ reports back)*. It’s a relief, and an opportunity to reflect on the whole process. There are lessons for all students — PhD or otherwise — that I’ve picked up along the way that I’d like to share.
1. Everybody procrastinates: don’t feel too guilty about it.
Through the course of my PhD I’ve watched the whole of Battlestar Galactica four times, I’ve watched the entire MCU twice, I’ve been on three holidays to Europe, I’ve moved home twice, I started a writer’s festival in my lounge room… I don’t regret these distractions. They’re a relief, they help make life colourful and to add flavour to my research. I wouldn’t recommend completing a coursework essay at 2am in Zurich to submit on time in Australia though…
2. The P ought to stand for Persistence as much as it does philosophy.
When I started the PhD, Margot Ford from the University of Newcastle told me that the most important thing is persistence. She said I had to want this and to stick with it. She was right. It seems like an obvious truth, but it clarifies something key to doing a PhD: the hardest part isn’t the thinking and the students who get to the end aren’t there because they’re ‘smarter’ than others (I’m certainly not). It’s discipline and persistence. Bloody-mindedness. Determination. Because you get demoralised throughout the long journey and the only thing that picks you back up is putting one foot in front of the other and continuing with it.
3. Make progress every day, however slight it may be.
One foot in front of the other means setting aside time — even 30 minutes, but better if an hour — every day to get something done. Read something. Deal with a few comments in markup. Best of all, write something, even if it’s crap: get something out of your brain and onto the page. The last year and a half of my thesis has been driven by exactly that principle and I made more progress taking small bites than I did at any other time in my candidature. Wake up each morning, write, edit, get an hour of work done before the day begins (well, after the gym). Like compound interest, the effect builds over time and suddenly you’ve done heaps of work.
4. Don’t forget to enjoy the process.
When I started at Sydney Uni, I sent an email to Raewyn Connell — a goddess of sociology — to see if we could get lunch. She said yes, so I got to ask her about her career and her advice for a PhD student. She told me that I’d rarely get the chance to go this deep on a single subject so I should enjoy the experience while I can and if necessary take my time doing it. Maybe as a part time PhD I took that advice too liberally, but I can say that at the end of the process, despite the times you inevitably feel stressed and sick of it, I have enjoyed it. And I’m happy with the work I have created. Proud even!
5. “You’re only as good as your last performance, so finish it.”
That’s a quote from Marcia Hines from the first season of Australian Idol. She said it to a young singer who was nervous and unable to finish her song: Marcia pushed her to have the guts to complete it. It seems superficial, but that quote got me through my undergraduate degree and it got me through my PhD. Big projects that take years, that involve personal change and transformation, that involve the effort and persistence that I talked about at the top of this post, are often frustrating and you want to stop. But all it takes is finishing — drag yourself across the line and get it done.
The old adage that it’s not a sprint, it’s a marathon is never truer of anything than it is of completing a thesis. There are plenty of amazing blogs out there about writing (Patter and Thesis Whisperer are two of the very best), so keep an eye on them and just remember, above all else, that persistence will get you across the line.
*Update: I passed!
