What is a PhD and Why Do Things Go Wrong?

A PhD is essentially a deal among the parties involved, whereby you do something that someone else wants, and in exchange you get your PhD. As long as all parties openly express what they want prior to the deal being formed, and all parties agree to these terms, then the deal is fair. However, the deal becomes unfair when ulterior motives enter and people don’t hold up their end of the deal. Almost always, the party who suffers is the PhD student. We’ll get into the reason for this later.

The idea of a PhD is to train a person of a certain standard to the level whereby they can effectively investigate an area of interest. To do so, first the area of interest must be identified, which could be anything from investigating the effects of stress on memory, to investigating the effects of language on thought. It doesn’t really matter what the area of interest is, as long as the work will feasibly result in tangible benefits. For example, understanding the effects of stress on memory might be important for a hospital, as a surgeon involved in a stressful procedure may be more prone to forgetting minor details, which could cause complications later on down the track. It doesn’t really matter what the tangible benefit is as long as it is desirable (usually the desire is in terms of money…by understanding this effect, this process could become this many dollar less expensive or you could make this much money, etc. – universities are effectively businesses, they operate on money, even seemingly irrelevant research can often generate income).

Once the area of interest, or “the question”, has been formulated, the next step is to determine a methodology that will answer this question. This process is key in the training as it builds critical thinking skills, and increases the student’s ability in understanding what the limitations of methodologies are and how to create appropriate methodologies. This also involves forethought and trains your abilities to predict potential problems that will arise, and to devise solutions to these problems before they occur. During the implementation of the methodology, there could be complications due to unforeseen issues, which provides further training in problem solving.

Once the results have been obtained, processing and assessment occur, whereby the PhD student (along with the advisors) determines if the results are sufficient for answering the original question of the PhD. If not, then repetition of the previously defined methodology must be done, or a new methodology must be formulated and carried out.

Finally, the results are then presented in a concise and comprehensible manner; usually as a dissertation, journal papers, and possibly an oral examination.

The crux of the PhD is as simple as what I’ve just written, and in the perfect world, you wouldn’t need to bother reading the rest of this book. However, the remainder of this book covers what usually happens in this world, and why few PhDs are ever that straightforward. Take for example the process I’ve defined, it is very subjective, which can easily lead to problems. For example, some questions that arise are:

-How “big” must the question be?

-How conclusive must the finding(s) be?

-If I find a negative result, is that still good enough?

The completion of your PhD hinges on these questions. Furthermore, the answers to these questions, and other questions relating to your PhD, are determined purely by your advisors, dissertation committee, and other people in the university. In other words, the answers to these questions are determined by people who aren’t you, and if one of those people say jump, then you will probably have to jump. This massive power difference gives rise to many of the issues that could occur during the PhD process, as you are more or less at the mercy of others. What’s more, the longer than your PhD carries on, the more ruthless those with the fate of your PhD in their hands can be; at the start of your PhD, you have invested very little effort into the project, so while you may not want to quit, if an unreasonable request comes your way, you are able to do so with relatively little regret. On the other hand, imagine that after four years, having worked like a dog, scraped by on a pitiful wage in an effort to complete your PhD, and jumped through many hoops (not to mention the four years of your life that you’ve invested), and a seemingly ridiculous request comes along - you are far more likely to accept the request than if you were within your first year. Furthermore, the people that hold the fate of your PhD in their hands, know this.

Another disadvantage that the PhD student faces is that the PhD, the thing that they are after, is discrete; either you have it or you don’t. So, doing everything required to get a PhD and not crossing the finish line amounts to nothing. There is no such thing as an “almost-PhD”. So, what does that mean in terms of the deal that you originally made? Well, the things that the other players in the deal get may be less discrete, such as research.

Throughout the PhD, you are conducting research, so a player that wants research is getting a return on the deal continuously and they have less to lose the longer your PhD continues. You on the other hand, have more to lose as the PhD continues, and not until you’ve completed your PhD do you get that for which you bartered.

BUT, you can get what you bartered for. That's what I'm here for, to teach you how :)