I have finished my PhD not so long ago (2015), but long enough to gain some perspective. Looking back I thought that PhD is about finish my project on time. I was too obsessed about day to day grind to notice what a PhD is really about. So if you are thinking about doing PhD, you have already started, or you are close to the finish, please look at your PhD broader, because at the end of the day it is not about the project, really…
1. Critical thinking
From the first day of your PhD programme you are encouraged to ask questions, analyse what you read and observe, judge the arguments, draw conclusions based on the data, and solve problems. This process of asking questions, gathering data, analyzing, thinking creatively and drawing conclusions are at the core of critical thinking.
Looking at a problem from different angles, identify key points, weighing the points against each other to judge the evidence, adding your own experience into the mixture may lead to an exciting discovery. Not every job in the World offers that. Lucky PhD students! After you get a hang of critical thinking it is hard to switch it off. It is like opening some mystical gate to another level of thinking.
More on critical thinking from me here: What is critical thinking? Definition and a summary of process
2. Writing
If thinking is a king, then writing is a queen. Writing is the second most important skill you should develop during your PhD. Researchers are thinkers, but if they cannot communicate, especially in writing, no-one can learn from or draw upon their research. Also the researcher themselves will have trouble connecting with others in the field and therefore miss out on many opportunities to challenge their thinking, grow and develop.
Writing as a researcher differs from undergraduate writing. You are no longer required to just summarize on the facts you read, but you have to evaluate and weight the arguments and add your own judgement to it aka add critical thinking.
The requirements for writing in research are vast: literature reviews, data reports, grant applications, ethics applications, media releases, public announcements; to name just a few. If you can start polishing your writing skills early in your PhD, you will save yourself a lot of time later in your career. If you want to improve your writing quickly, please read How to improve your writing quickly – 6 tactics that saved my thesis.
Also, needless to say that many institutions use researchers’ writing outputs as a proxy to rank and reward their research. This is especially true for young researchers, who did not have many opportunities to prove themselves within a research community yet. Let me break a harsh true to you: you will be judged as a researcher on the basis of your writing first (the only exception would be social media presence).
Talking about social media: If your programme does not require you to write too much, you may want to set up a blog, Instagram or Facebook page to keep you motivated to write often, if not daily. Having an audience teaches you the main thing about writing: it is not about you, it is always about your audience.
3. Organisational skills
Development of organisational skills is a hidden gem of a PhD programme. This is the end of guided cycle of giving you some knowledge to consume, time to digest this knowledge, and testing you on how much of the knowledge you can recol.
PhD requires you to plan and organise yourself at long- (3 to 6 years, the whole PhD), medium- (months/weeks which relate to the parts of your project) and day-to-day time frames. In a typical PhD programme there are so many things to do, and so little time, that it may quickly become overwhelming, if you do not… well… organize yourself accordingly.
Whatever tactics you were using to cover lack of systematic work in your undergraduate carrier, will not work during your PhD. You are forced to develop a different process which is more sustainable over a long period of the programme.
I would suggest you use this opportunity also to learn a little bit about yourself. What you need to feel good about your work and life outside of work, and how it should manifest on a daily basis? When are you the most productive? What influences your productivity?
4. Research and statistical methods
This one is obvious I suppose and do not need too much of commenting. PhD programme after all aims at making you an independent researcher. Typically PhD involves very specific methods used to answer a very specific research question. But think a little bit ahead and consider what other methods would you need in the future but are outside of your current project. Maybe you would become very competitive later if you would know how to use this new piece of equipment, maybe this new research design would be useful for the next project/ topic you would like to explore after your PhD.
It may be a good idea to offer your help to someone working on a project or using an equipment you would like to learn about, but do not have time or possibility to incorporate into your own project. Win-win: you learn, they get the help. It will take less time from you than running a full blown project, plus you will quickly learn many insides and practical shortcuts without even noticing. The amount of knowledge I have gained helping with some random projects always amazes me as I draw upon these experiences literally all the time.
Statistical methods are usually the dreaded part of the research, at least for some. There is no place for mistakes and the entry barrier is high. Not to mention that some may think it is straight up boring. I urge you to change your thinking about statistics.
Deep understanding of statistical methods is a strong tool to aid your critical thinking, and for that reason is crucial to attain. On one hand, you have to be able to judge whether the other people’s studies used proper statistics to draw particular conclusions. On the other hand, you yourself have to be able to apply proper statistical methods to analyse and assess your own data.
So here you go, these are the four core skills you develop during your PhD, what do you think?