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A #PhD can be an amazing journey for many, but it’s also inevitably a time of significant struggle(s). What that struggle is can take a near-infinite variety of forms, from health issues to relationship breakups, and from home sickness to mental health.
But beyond these relatively well known challenges, there are other types of struggles that affect a significant proportion of PhD candidates, at least in my experience supervising dozens of students and informally advising many hundreds more – these are the topic of today’s #HackingAcademia video, “Struggling During Your PhD”.
For those who come to a PhD early in their life, it is often the largest and most substantive professional project they have embarked on. Grasping the scale can be challenging to get your head around, especially when previous projects – like a final year undergraduate project – have been completed in just 6 or 12 months, and only part-time.
Related to the scale challenge is the lack of structure problem: moving from a structured course with timestamped milestones and definitive assessment to an unstructured research environment, where the outcomes are uncertain and unknown, can be be quite confronting.
Whether you come to a PhD as a fresh grad, or after a successful professional career (just two of many potential pathways in life to a PhD), starting back at a level where you’re fumbling around and not very good at many things can be humbling. Before embarking on this journey, you need to “prepare to suck, for a bit” and have the humility and patience with yourself to get better. This can be especially challenging when you’re transitioning from a former role where you were highly accomplished.
How can you step up to these challenges successfully? Good due diligence before you start the PhD, both by yourself and in terms of briefing by your prospective supervisor, can help prepare you.
But beyond yourself, probably the most important element will be the people around you.
These fall into three main categories:
1) your cheerleaders (often family, friends, partner), who are unwaveringly positive,
2) the compatriots, your fellow PhD student living similar experiences with whom you can vent and learn, and
3) your supervisory team, who are there to support and guide you, but also to nudge you in the right direction every now and then with constructive criticism as appropriate.
A PhD can be a wonderful part of your career, but having a clear eyed understanding of the potential challenges before you embark on one, and appropriate support mechanisms in place to better deal with them along the way, will radically improve the chances of a happy and successful journey.
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Full Video Notes
Today’s video covers some of the particular challenges that are quite common for PhD students during their PhDs, but which perhaps aren’t talked about as much as they could – or should – be. They’re also often not discussed enough in the lead-up to deciding whether to do a PhD. Of course, there are a near-infinite number of challenges someone might encounter during a PhD. A PhD that lasts three, four, five years or more happens alongside the rest of your life – so challenges can be endless. I’m not planning to go into most of them, but just to mention a few common ones: you may have medical or health conditions that you bring into the PhD, or that develop during it; you may face emergencies in your family or friendship group; you may have caregiving responsibilities; and you may experience mental health challenges – which are quite common during PhD studies.
However, in today’s video, I want to talk about a few very specific challenges that, while also quite common, aren’t talked about enough. The first of these applies more frequently to people who go straight from an undergraduate degree into a PhD, without time in a job, a Master’s program, or other life experiences – so they’re relatively junior by career standards when they start. This is especially apparent in countries like Australia, where it’s possible to begin a PhD at age 20 in some circumstances. The challenge here is that a PhD is something substantially different from anything they’ve encountered before.
So what are the key differences and challenges? One is that, for many people at that career stage, the PhD will be the biggest single focused project they’ve ever taken on. Even if they’ve done projects during their undergraduate degree, those are typically part-time or fractional efforts lasting a semester or two. A PhD, by contrast, is a full-time – and sometimes more than full-time – endeavor that can stretch over three to five years, depending on the country and program. That alone is a big step up.
Another challenge is the lack of structure. Research, by its nature, can’t be guaranteed or planned with total precision. If you knew exactly how it would unfold over the next few years, it wouldn’t really be research. This unstructured, unpredictable environment can be confronting for those used to highly structured systems – like undergraduate degrees, which tend to have clear subjects, assessments, timelines, and learning outcomes. Even the most complex undergraduate projects are much smaller in scale and time compared to a PhD.
Something people sometimes fail to appreciate is that the difficulty of a structured challenge is very different from the difficulty of an unstructured one. You may have excelled in demanding coursework, but research uncertainty is another kind of difficulty altogether, and adjusting to it can require a serious mindset shift.
As you get into the PhD, another common challenge emerges: you will likely struggle to achieve the kinds of research breakthroughs you hope to make. The tools and strategies that worked for you during your undergraduate studies often won’t suffice. This is especially confronting for academic high achievers. In their past experience, whenever things got hard, they could double down – work harder, focus more – and success usually followed. That doesn’t always work in a PhD. While work ethic is important, it’s not enough on its own. In research, effort has to be directed in just the right way – and identifying that direction is often unclear.
For idealistic candidates, there’s also the reality check of what a PhD really is. Many come in with a vision of free, unfettered inquiry, but quickly realize there are constraints: for example, the need to publish papers, often in accordance with the norms of their field. That can include doing things that feel like box-ticking or hoop-jumping, and it can be jarring. Hopefully, these practicalities were discussed during your early conversations with potential supervisors, but that’s not always the case.
Much of what I’ve said so far applies especially to students entering PhDs early in their careers. But some of these challenges also apply to mature-age PhD candidates – for instance, people who return to study after a successful professional career. For these individuals, it can be very confronting to return to being relatively junior and inexperienced. They’ve often been high achievers, well-respected by peers, and used to excelling in their field. Suddenly being back at the beginning of a new career – academic research – can be tough.
When we speak with mature-age applicants, we tend to spend extra time checking whether they’re ready for that kind of shift. Of course, they bring many strengths to their PhDs – but making the mental adjustment is important. It’s difficult to not be good at something when you’re used to being great at what you do. Learning a new academic “language” can feel like learning a new sport or instrument: frustrating at first, especially if you’re not expecting it.
These are just a few examples from a vast set of potential challenges. One point of this video is to normalize them. I’ve supervised many students, and I’ve mentored many more – both across Australia and internationally – and I can say with confidence that these types of challenges are very common. Beyond the usual life challenges – family, relationships, etc. – the difficulty of undertaking the biggest project of your life, the uncertainty of not having answers, and the need to learn in an unstructured setting are all very real and frequent issues that PhD students face.
So, what can be done to mitigate or prepare for these challenges?
First, due diligence – by both you and your prospective supervisor – matters. A good, experienced supervisor won’t try to scare you off, but they will help you understand the realities of a PhD, so you can make an informed decision. Matching your idealized vision of a PhD to the day-to-day reality is crucial.
Second, humility is key. Whether you’re a high-achieving undergraduate or a returning professional, starting a PhD means being new at something again – and you won’t be great at all of it, at least not at first. Allowing yourself to “suck” at a few things in the early days can be freeing, and most people improve quickly once they allow that space for learning.
Third – and perhaps most important – is surrounding yourself with different kinds of people. PhD students tend to be smart and analytical, and they often try to logic their way out of every problem. That works sometimes, but not always. You need people. I find it useful to think in terms of three categories:
Cheerleaders – These are your emotional supporters: partners, friends, family. They believe in you unconditionally and keep you going, no matter what happens.
Compatriots – These are your peers, fellow students in your lab or department. They’re going through similar things. You can vent together, share advice, and empathize with each other’s struggles.
Supervisors – A good supervisor gives you perspective. They can tell you whether your struggles are normal, share success stories of others who’ve faced similar issues, and help you keep a sense of proportion. They may not always be cheerleaders – they have to give critical feedback – but they’re vital in helping you navigate the PhD journey.
These three groups – cheerleaders, compatriots, and supervisors – are crucial in helping you through not just the common challenges I’ve talked about in detail, but the many others that inevitably arise during a PhD.
I hope this has been helpful in surfacing and normalizing some of the more rarely discussed but very real challenges you might face. Good luck with your PhD, or whatever comes next – and I’ll see you next time.