Thursday, February 17, 2005
It's a bit of a long and tortuous road but I thought I'd tell you how I ended up in my current PhD.
Like every other PhD student I did an undergraduate degree, I did biochemistry at a small but friendly pretty OK university. I pottered along and was quite rubbish until I realised there was quite a real risk of coming out with a useless, low grade pass if I didn't pull my socks up. I pulled my socks right up and in my final year I decided that I really did love pottering about and doing research in the lab and it was something I was really really good at (not something that I'm used to). Anyway I thought the way to get a good job pottering about and doing lab research was to do a PhD. So I applied to a really excellent lab in a top notch research institute and waited for a response. I was pretty certain I'd at least get an interview as I had worked there in the summer holidays and got on well with everyone. I got bored of waiting and telephoned to find out why I hadn't heard anything. It turned out that my tutors at university hadn't bothered writing or posting the references to go with the application form. I was so angry that I'd missed out on such a great opportunity due to their incompetance. I was even more gutted when I found out they would have loved to have had me do the PhD with them at the top notch research institute.
After that I had a think and applied to lots of random universities for PhDs and a couple of MRes courses. I got offered a few interesting projects but once I found out I'd got funding I chose to do the MRes course. It turned out to be possibly one of the best years ever. I met my mostly lovely boyfriend, got loads of excellent research experiance and got loads of satisfaction from doing so much interesting research and time to rethink doing a PhD. It turned out that the PhD I really wanted to do at the top notch research institute the previous year had been readvertised so I immediately got in touch with the project leader and got the phd without interview or anything.
Anyway I started this PhD at the top notch place and it was pretty poor. The group just didn't seem motivated or particularly interested in the work. All the people I worked with were highly skilled technicians rather than researchers. To them it was just a job, arrive at 8am, coffee at about 10am, lunch and cryptic crossword at 12 then home at 4pm. Everyone did their own thing and they were so dull. I didn't enjoy it so I decided to sneakily apply for PhDs at other universities. I ended up having a heap of interviews at a university near my boyfriend and ended up taking the least interesting sounding project because at least all the people in the lab seemed friendly and I would get to see my new supervisor.
So I've been doing this PhD for 2 and a bit years now (eek I really should get motivated to finish but it's so scary, I've been a student so long, I think I need rehabilitating out into the real world). The work I've actually ended up doing is surface chemistry, electrochemistry and generally hard science, I've actually given up on the stuff I wanted to do when I first started this PhD. Thinking about it all it's really great and I've ended up in a field I've always been interested in but didn't think I could do (I always kept away from physics, electrical engineering and general hard science). Now I'm trying to make a novel medical diagnostic and on the whole it's been pretty successful, I've even got my first ever research paper accepted.
The moral of this story, to me at least, is don't give up, try as hard as you can, don't put up with people being shit and second rate, give anything a go, you never know where it might end.
Phew. That was far too long.
Like every other PhD student I did an undergraduate degree, I did biochemistry at a small but friendly pretty OK university. I pottered along and was quite rubbish until I realised there was quite a real risk of coming out with a useless, low grade pass if I didn't pull my socks up. I pulled my socks right up and in my final year I decided that I really did love pottering about and doing research in the lab and it was something I was really really good at (not something that I'm used to). Anyway I thought the way to get a good job pottering about and doing lab research was to do a PhD. So I applied to a really excellent lab in a top notch research institute and waited for a response. I was pretty certain I'd at least get an interview as I had worked there in the summer holidays and got on well with everyone. I got bored of waiting and telephoned to find out why I hadn't heard anything. It turned out that my tutors at university hadn't bothered writing or posting the references to go with the application form. I was so angry that I'd missed out on such a great opportunity due to their incompetance. I was even more gutted when I found out they would have loved to have had me do the PhD with them at the top notch research institute.
After that I had a think and applied to lots of random universities for PhDs and a couple of MRes courses. I got offered a few interesting projects but once I found out I'd got funding I chose to do the MRes course. It turned out to be possibly one of the best years ever. I met my mostly lovely boyfriend, got loads of excellent research experiance and got loads of satisfaction from doing so much interesting research and time to rethink doing a PhD. It turned out that the PhD I really wanted to do at the top notch research institute the previous year had been readvertised so I immediately got in touch with the project leader and got the phd without interview or anything.
Anyway I started this PhD at the top notch place and it was pretty poor. The group just didn't seem motivated or particularly interested in the work. All the people I worked with were highly skilled technicians rather than researchers. To them it was just a job, arrive at 8am, coffee at about 10am, lunch and cryptic crossword at 12 then home at 4pm. Everyone did their own thing and they were so dull. I didn't enjoy it so I decided to sneakily apply for PhDs at other universities. I ended up having a heap of interviews at a university near my boyfriend and ended up taking the least interesting sounding project because at least all the people in the lab seemed friendly and I would get to see my new supervisor.
So I've been doing this PhD for 2 and a bit years now (eek I really should get motivated to finish but it's so scary, I've been a student so long, I think I need rehabilitating out into the real world). The work I've actually ended up doing is surface chemistry, electrochemistry and generally hard science, I've actually given up on the stuff I wanted to do when I first started this PhD. Thinking about it all it's really great and I've ended up in a field I've always been interested in but didn't think I could do (I always kept away from physics, electrical engineering and general hard science). Now I'm trying to make a novel medical diagnostic and on the whole it's been pretty successful, I've even got my first ever research paper accepted.
The moral of this story, to me at least, is don't give up, try as hard as you can, don't put up with people being shit and second rate, give anything a go, you never know where it might end.
Phew. That was far too long.
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