Hi I'm James Arvanitakis. I'm the Dean of Graduate Studies here at Western Sydney
University and today's video is talking about how to fail a PhD. So the first way
to fail a PhD is to pick the wrong supervisor. Picking a supervisor is
the most important thing you can do when you begin your PhD and it's actually
that relationship will make or break your PhD. Sometimes people are attracted
to the highest profile academics or academics they think are the best in
their field and that could be the right supervisor for you, but don't necessarily
only be attracted to those supervisors. Pick a supervisor who wants to work
with you in the way that you want to work, understands the project that you
want to do and also is willing to understand your ideas, especially if they're a
little bit different. So don't always go for the highest profile person, go for
the person who suits you the most.
The second sure way to fail your PhD is to
either avoid your supervisor, ignore your supervisor, or ignore their advice. A few
years ago I found a friend of mine in a PhD lab hiding behind a photocopier.
When I asked her what she was doing, she said she was actually hiding from her
supervisor. This is not a good sign. It's important that you don't avoid your
supervisor. If somethings happened and you've lost a bit of momentum, rather
than avoid them you should actually seek them out and ask for help.
The third way to fail a PhD is to not treat it like a job. PhD requires you to
put in at least 35 to 40 hours a week. That is 9:00 to 5:00 every day at least
five days a week, and this is how you should treat it. Sometimes people think
that they've got plenty of time, make appointments to catch up with friends
for coffee or do something and they waste time. This is actually a
fundamental error that many PhD students make. So you need to treat it like a job,
working seven or eight hours a day and treat it as a professional would.
The fourth way to fail a PhD is to wait for people to tell you what to do, especially
within the Australian context, the PhD student is expected to lead the project,
lead your research, don't sit around and wait for people to tell you who to
interview, when to interview them, how to interview them, what research to do, what
to read. Always seek advice from your supervisor, but it's most important that
you lead the project and don't wait around for people to tell you what to do.
Number five in tips how to fail your PhD is to leave all your
writing towards the end. So you spend a couple of years doing all the research
and doing all the interviews or doing all your, all your lab tests and then with
a year to go you think to yourself now I'm going to do my writing. Staring down
the barrel of trying to write somewhere between 50 to 100 thousand words in one
year is almost impossible. So what you should do is make sure that you start
writing from the very first day that you start your PhD. Never leave your writing
to the end, it's a surefire way to fail your PhD. The sixth way to fail your PhD
is to be precious, not take feedback or actually aim for perfection. What happens
is everything you write, no matter if it's, if it's the first draft or the tenth
draft, it's always going to have room for improvement. When you get feedback, don't
take it, don't be sensitive about it. Look at it, take advantage of it, see how you
can improve your work. So definitely avoid being precious. Being precious is
a certain way to fail your PhD. The seventh big error that people make that
leads to them failing their PhD, is to never plan time off. You always need to
reward yourself with some time off, could be one night, could be a weekend, could be
a whole week, but it's really important that you plan in your timeline, you
actually plan to reward yourself with a break and have some time off. The eigth
way to fail your PhD is to aim too high or aim too low. That is, either make your project
too big or too small, and this is where the advice from your supervisor
really counts. When I started my PhD I actually titled it 'Redesigning the Global
Economy'. Probably a little bit big for a three year project. So it's really
important that you actually get the scale and the size of your project right.
Aiming too high or aiming too low will mean that you're
definitely going to struggle to complete your PhD. The ninth way to fail your PhD
is to not discuss potential examiners with your supervisor, and this is really
good advice from the mighty Thesis Whisperer. Within the Australian context
you cannot pick your examiners, but you need to discuss them with your
supervisor. So it's really important that you identify potential examiners that
you think would understand the aim of your project and will mark it in the
spirit in which it's written. So that's it from me, nine tips on how to fail
your PhD. Please avoid them and I'm sure you'll do really well. Good luck and I'll
speak to you soon! Bye now!