Surviving Stress: Planning and Tracking Progress
Roxana Corduneanu has recently completed her ESRC-funded PhD in Management at the Adam Smith Business School, and currently works as Researcher Development Programme (RDP) Facilitator at the University of Glasgow and as Research Assistant at the University of Warwick Institute for Employment Research. In this post, she reflects on how planning and tracking progress of both your research and your professional development can help you survive the stress of the PhD.
Planning for and keeping track of your overall progress during your PhD is one of the most important and yet underused strategies when it comes to ensuring timely completion, and in the process, surviving stress. Indeed, while everyone agrees that planning is key, and while some departments even require to see our research plans for the next 12 months during our annual progress reviews, very few of us know what to plan for, specifically.
At the very least, very few of us know what to plan for other than the structure of our own thesis. Yes, we know that by the end of our first year, we’re expected to have completed our literature review, performed a couple of lab experiments or even have a rough draft of the first chapter of our thesis. But what about the other activities that would enhance the experience of doing a PhD while also giving you an edge when comes to entering the job market? What about some of the other activities that help you build your professional identity as a researcher? And how do you plan for them? After all, you don’t want to get to the final year of your PhD and find out that you should have engaged in more teaching or gained more industry experience, but now it’s too late.
Planning is therefore crucial. When it comes to your thesis planning, regular meetings with your supervisors, having informal chats with your peers and following the guidelines of your department are a must. You need to make sure you know the milestones you’re supposed to have achieved in your thesis well ahead of time, i.e. well ahead of your annual progress review. Not only will tracking your progress help you complete on time and pre-empt any foreseeable issues (e.g. ethics approval taking too long? you can plan to use this time to refine your literature review), but it will also give you a sense of self-confidence in your ability to appropriately manage your project, and it will help you reflect on what you have accomplished, not just what is left to be done.
When it comes to your professional development planning, take some time to check out the Researcher Development Planning (RDP) workshops at UofG – there are loads of sessions to choose from, depending on the skills you want to improve and professional development areas you want to target. Do you have an important conference coming up and you’re looking for some clear, memorable strategies for networking? Then why not sign up for Navigating Academic Conferences, Presentations and Networking? Are you interested in undertaking joint research projects but not sure what this involves and how to approach people for such collaborations? Then Working Collaboratively in Academia might be just for you.
The point is that by planning for your professional development, you can already start to establish you're reliable, responsible and that you can manage additional work on top of your own research, including conferences, GTA work, institutional visits, industry collaborations or research assistance on additional projects. All of this, in turn, will help you make sure you’re well on track not only for being successful in your PhD (e.g. conferences can be a great source of feedback on your ideas and thesis progress), but also that you are a well-rounded individual that is ready for what comes after the PhD as well.
So, the next time you’re meeting with your supervisors, it might be a good idea to bring up the issue of planning, and discuss your thesis progress as well as your wider professional development as a researcher. Doing this as early as your first year will help you make sure you have enough time to address any gaps in your skill set and experience that you’re aware of, and that you’re prepared for post-PhD life (whether a dream job or an as-of-yet-undiscovered career path).
But even if you’re nearing the end of your PhD, you can still consider the requirements of different jobs you might be interested in, whether it's in academia (research fellowships, postdocs or full-time lecturing) or industry (anything from consultancy to being a research manager or a policy adviser) – and see how you can play to your strengths. Remember you can always ask for support from the Careers Service, RDP facilitators and even peers who’ve been through the process already. We’ll all get there sooner or later, but the advantage of planning is that it can help make the journey more efficient, less stressful and even—why not?—more enjoyable.
This is the first post in a series on Surviving Stress as a PGR. If you have ideas for posts or would like to guest post or share your experiences managing stress, do contact us and we will be in touch.
