There are several challenges faced by PhD students during their degree. They will come across a lot of obstacles along the way – thus prepare for life as a student of PhD by dealing with the significant challenges.
Let us talk about potential obstacles and how to overcome them.
Owning Your Time
An essential part of a PhD study is strong time management. Thus, you must treat your PhD as a full-time job, also knowing that absence of leisure time can lessen your chances of success and damage your health.
While writing the thesis, managing time is highly essential. Do not send large chunks of work to your supervisor. Regular and short submissions are more beneficial. Likewise, it is necessary to identify when extra duties like becoming a student representative or teaching undergraduates take a lot of your time. If you feel that the quality of your degree is suffering, it is okay not to accept the chance to do new things.
Managing Your Supervisor
A significant aspect to the success of your PhD is a positive relationship of the student with the supervisor. But it is common for issues to develop. They include:
Absence – The supervisor may be mostly unavailable, maybe due to other work commitments. If the second supervisor cannot guide you, you need to ask for more regular meetups.
Conflict – If the research is interdisciplinary and you have two leading supervisors, they can give you opposite advice – or may not like each other. In this case, you could talk to them separately – whatever you do, never take sides.
Intimidation – The supervisor may play a more active role in your project than necessary, likely if they are trying to compensate for their naivety. Never hesitate to ask them to take a step backwards.
Leave – Occasionally, the supervisors may go on sabbatical, change university, or retire. You need to talk with the department about the things that are going to happen.
If the situation does not improve even after talking through the above issues, you must think about changing the supervisor.
Catching ‘Second-Year Blues’
The intensity and length of the PhD can decrease your morale, motivation, and confidence. Usually, it happens when the initial enthusiasm of being a PhD student has reduced, and it is called ‘second-year blues.’
Try to be optimistic, and talk about your feelings and thoughts to your supervisor and other PhD students. Often, the second-year blues are cured by constructive feedback, encouragement, and firm support.
Boost your confidence level by presenting at different conferences and try to remove the lack of motivation by doing rewarding, engaging, and varied tasks.
Starting Your Thesis
It is complicated to start your thesis. It is suggested to start work on the stuff you find the easiest. Do a lot of planning, and it can help you along the way. Some parts you write may not make sense, but do not let anything discourage you. It is your learning process, and these sections can give you useful stuff for future articles.
These are the principal challenges faced by PhD students.
I have briefly discussed how to tackle them. I hope this can help you! For more content, follow our website.