Podcast – Looking back and learning from the PhD years

Voice Over:

Welcome to the NIHR Dementia Researcher Podcast, brought to you by dementiaresearcher.nihr.ac.uk in association with Alzheimer’s Research UK and Alzheimer’s Society, supporting early-career dementia researchers across the world.

Adam Smith:

Hello, and thank you for listening to the Dementia Researcher Podcast. I’m Adam Smith and today, I’m delighted to be your host! Before I introduce today’s topic, and our fantastic guests, I just wanted to remind you that this podcast is just one small part of the NIHR Dementia Researcher service. On our website, you’ll find jobs, events, funding opportunities, and we publish blogs and articles every day discussing the latest research, and lots of careers advice and top tips for a successful career. Did I say top tips wrong? Top tips. I like saying “Top tips.” Top tips.

Adam Smith:

We also host webinars and we have a “Useful Resources” section and a busy WhatsApp community, so please do take a look and register for our Friday weekly bulletin.

Adam Smith:

Okay, enough with the sales pitch. In our last podcast two weeks ago, you’ll recall that we were joined by four PhD students who were at the very early stages of their journey. And today, we’re going to follow up on that theme, and I’m pleased to be joined by three people who we’ve met before in previous podcasts, and who have come out the other side of their PhDs and can now call themselves doctors. So I’m delighted to welcome Dr Anna Volkmer. Hello, Anna.

Dr Anna Volkmer:

Hello.

Adam Smith:

Dr Chris Hardy, hi, Chris.

Dr Chris Hardy:

Hello.

Adam Smith:

And Dr James Fletcher from Kings College.

Dr James Fletcher:

Hello Adam.

Adam Smith:

I’m also joined by somebody you met last week, who is Chloe Tulip, who is nine months into her PhD at Swansea University. Hi, Chloe.

Chloe Tulip:

Hi.

Adam Smith:

Chloe’s joining us today because she’s going to join in the interrogation. Anybody who joined last week will recall that what we talked about was how to find your feet, and so what we’re going to do today is, we’re going to follow up on that and get some advice from three fantastic people who are going to drop some knowledge on us, for anybody who particularly is in their first years of a PhD or thinking about starting one.

Adam Smith:

Hello, everybody again. Thank you for joining us today. Maybe I’m going to just go round the Zoom first of all and ask you each to introduce yourselves, and I’m going to work from the top left of my screen, so I’m going to come to you first, Anna. Hi, Anna.

Dr Anna Volkmer:

Hello. Thank you for having me. I am a speech and language therapist by background, and I do research into developing interventions for people with language-led dementias, and I started my NIHR funded PhD back in 2015, and I did it part-time and finished just recently, so I think, including all my amendments all officially, I finished on the 11th of June, which was also my 40th birthday.

Adam Smith:

Congratulations. So everything’s very fresh for you, then.

Dr Anna Volkmer:

Oh, yes.

Adam Smith:

How long did you do that over? Was this three years, five years, or… Because you were working as well.

Dr Anna Volkmer:

So I did it part-time, just shy of four days, so it’s 75% over four years was the funding, and then after the fourth year, I actually started working back three days in the NHS, and finished off the final bits of my PhD while I was still working. But I chose to do it part-time because I had small children when I first started as a mature student.

Adam Smith:

So you have that extra challenge of parenting, working, and studying.

Dr Anna Volkmer:

They’re fairly self-sufficient now. I’ve rehabilitated the children, so they’re independent and I can focus on my work. It’s great.

Adam Smith:

Well-done. James, let’s come to you next.

Dr James Fletcher:

Yeah, so I’m a sociologist by background. My PhD focused on role negotiation in informal dementia care, people who don’t really engage with services for whatever reason, and I finished that back in 2008, so I’m less fresh than Anna. And since then, not really intentionally, my research has focused more on dementia research itself, which sounds a bit odd. It’s dementia research [inaudible 00:04:46] inception, but it’s moved in that direction in various ways.

Adam Smith:

Thanks James. So you’re researching the research and clearly a lot older than you actually look.

Dr James Fletcher:

I just sort of rushed through. So I’m one of those people who went straight from uni, back into uni, did my PhD just under three years. So that’s [crosstalk 00:05:11] baby face.

Adam Smith:

Were you a child genius? Did you finish your PhD at 22 and you’ve just kept going? Professor at 30.

Dr James Fletcher:

I was very much not a child genius. I was a late bloomer.

Adam Smith:

Thanks James. We’ll come to Chris next. Chris you’ll know from previous episodes. Has hosted for us before. Classic episodes such as How to Get Funding from our fantastic archive. Chris, can I ask you to introduce yourself?

Dr Chris Hardy:

Yes, hello. So I’m a psychologist by background and I completed by PhD at the Dementia Research Center at UCL in 2017. I’m now still carrying on my research from my PhD. I’ve got a personal Fellowship from Action on Hearing Loss and the Dunhill Medical Trust and I’ve also now just recently taken on a part-time role as an education officer for the charity Rare Dementia Support.

Adam Smith:

That sounds interesting and congratulations on the new work. Always looking for new opportunities. Nothing better to do, no?

Dr Chris Hardy:

Well sort of. I’m very excited about it, but it is a sort of Pandemic afflicted in that my research had to completely pause, because I do research with patients, and obviously that’s had to stop since March, so this has been a very… I’m very grateful for that opportunity to do something, which means that I can go part-time on my research in the hope that one day we’ll be able to start up our research again.

Adam Smith:

It’s nice as well if you can combine something you’re passionate about as well with work, then it doesn’t feel like work, right?

Dr Chris Hardy:

Exactly, yeah.

Adam Smith:

And Chloe. So everybody who joined us last week will have met you already, but can I ask you to introduce yourself?

Chloe Tulip:

Sure, my name’s Chloe. I am studying for my PhD at Swansea University. I’m about nine months in and I’m looking at the influence of sleep on psychophysiological and cognitive functions in healthy older people and people with vascular dementia. I’ll be doing some neuroimaging studies with near infrared spectroscopy and I’ll be looking at mismatched negativity as well, which is a component of event related potentials, which just looks at auditory change detection. So the profiles are very different for healthy people and people with dementia. So it can be used as an early diagnostic tool, and I’ll also be doing some emotional memory consolidation stuff. So, just a few different things altogether to build up a bigger picture.

Adam Smith:

Fantastic. Thank you very much. Fascinating subject as well.

Adam Smith:

So, let’s get into this. We’re going to have a slightly different format today. So, rather than the usual to and fro conversation, I’m going to go round and ask everybody to share their tip for early career researchers that are just starting their PhDs and we’re going to go round everybody to get their top three tips. We’re going to go round in turn and we’ll pick up on them afterwards and then hopefully this episode particularly will be of interest to those who are just starting out.

Adam Smith:

So, who shall I pick on first? I’m going to come to you first Anna. You’re looking confident. You’re also the top left hand corner of my screen, which always feels like a natural place to start.

Dr Anna Volkmer:

Fine. That’s perfect. I spent a bit of time thinking about it today. I wrote down a few and then prioritized them. So, I think probably my top tip for the very beginning of my PhD was around setting a timeline and setting some goals. I had to write a Gantt Chart when I submitted my funding proposal, and initially I was a bit snooty about it actually. I thought, “What’s the point?” But, actually what I realized was as soon as I started my PhD that I felt really like I had a real structure, that I knew what I was doing. I think partly having come from another job role, where I was quite hectic, I was coming into a totally different job, so it gave me loads of structure, and I found that very helpful.

Dr Anna Volkmer:

But equally, when I looked at my colleagues, my peer PhD colleagues, I and friends, I found that there was a few of them who felt quite lost and having this Gantt Chart, that was quite detailed, meant I felt that I knew what I was supposed to be doing from week to week, from day to day, from month to month, and it felt really satisfying to tick it off as well. I’m a ticker offer. Really enjoyed it.

Adam Smith:

Me too. I like having a list to tick things. James, does that resonate with you?

Dr James Fletcher:

Completely. Maybe not the Gantt Chart at that sort of macro level, but I think at an everyday level if you can have the structure of treating it as a job. If you have a 9:00 to 5:00 to go into the office or you do something like that, which doesn’t work for everyone. Some people want to work at midnight in the bedroom and that’s also fine, but if you can structure it in terms of sort of a more traditional job, that can be amazing for just getting you to plough through the work, because it’s self-structuring. The PhD is very unstructured. It’s left to you, so actually having any external, even artificial structure can be really helpful.

Adam Smith:

Fantastic. How about you Chris?

Dr Chris Hardy:

Yeah no, I definitely agree. Actually something I did think on really early into my PhD was, I made a… I don’t know if people still use Facebook nowadays, but at the time we all used Facebook and I made a Facebook event and invited all my friends and family to come, and that was for three years in the future, when I was going to submit my thesis and that really worked for me, because that was a load of social pressure to get it done by that point in time. I was lucky in that we didn’t have any Pandemics during my PhD, so it didn’t slow it, but that really helped me to keep on track and it felt really good when I met that deadline and that event happened.

Adam Smith:

Well, that was confidence for you. Anna, do you go further than that then? Do you start off with a high level structure like your Gantt Chart with some overall three month say, quarterly objectives and then you said you’re a list ticker. Do you break that down into stuff I want to do this week and this month?

Dr Anna Volkmer:

Oh yes, absolutely. Yeah, so it’s very macro level. I have all the key components of the project that I’m working on. I’ve been awarded some more funding actually. I’m going to start it on the 1st of October and I’ve already been thinking how I’m going to plan the activities that I said I’d do into which months and weeks, but then yeah I always drive down to the day and the week, and I have a paper diary and in it I have my list of activities that I need to get done by the end of the week, clinical list, because I’m currently working clinical and my research academic stuff, and I literally have to cross it off each week. Every Friday I transfer it over to the next week. I love it. It makes me feel like I’m somehow winning.

Adam Smith:

Like you’re in control. There are apps for that as well of course. I personally use Trello. I don’t know if anybody uses the Trello app. I love having the little boxes that you can drag and drop into your done column. To do; done! I like that. It’s got a good app as well, so you can do it on your smartphone too.

Adam Smith:

Chloe, I know from talking last time, you’re one of those people that James isn’t, in so much as you do like to work to your own hours. That works for you. How do you get along? Do you agree with the list keeping? Have you tried that yet? Is that something you do?

Chloe Tulip:

Yeah, that’s one of the questions I’d like to ask you guys, because I think I would really love to have a Gantt Chart and things where I can sort of box off into weeks and months and things like that, but I feel like I’m still at the stage where I’m not really 100% crystal clear on what I’m doing. So, I kind of know. Like I said in my intro, I’ve got the three major components, but I find it really difficult to plan that far ahead if I don’t know what I’m doing. It’s a bit like rubbing a crystal ball in a way. So, do you guys have any advice for that?

Dr Anna Volkmer:

I would suggest that, even if you make a Gantt Chart, you don’t have to completely stick to it religiously. So, I confess that as I continued over my PhD, some things moved forward and some things moved back, and some things became more detailed and some things dropped off. So it was a macro level, like you say, having the main components and plotting out that I might do a paper from one, and plotting out that I might present at a conference, because I knew it was going to be around that time of year. Then it really helped in supervision for example, when I was with my supervisors, working out what I really wanted to prioritize in the conversations, but I did always amend the Gantt Chart as necessary, particularly when I did my upgrade and I was really… my research project was becoming more and more refined and I knew where I was heading. That was a great time actually to do a complete overhaul of my timelines.

Adam Smith:

What about you Chris? Do you have anything to add to that?

Dr Chris Hardy:

No not really. I think that sounds really sensible and I think PhDs, you do have to be really adaptive and reactive to the challenges that you inevitably face and cannot possibly envisage happening. I think it’s helpful to have a broad outline of your basic timeline, when you would like to upgrade, when you’d like to get a paper submitted, but to also be kind to yourself and acknowledge that if that doesn’t happen, that’s okay. There’s probably a reason for that.

Adam Smith:

It’s a bit like writing really I guess. It’s that even, until you sit down and try and force yourself to do it, I think you’ll find there are things you can put in. There are some goals to set and once you force yourself to sit down and have a go, you might find that there’s more to go in it than you expect.

Adam Smith:

Right, tip number two. James, we’re going to come to you for your first tip.

Dr James Fletcher:

Yeah, so my first one is the most contentious. People may disagree with this, but this is based on my experience of me and my experience of other PhDs that I was with. I would suggest that often during the PhD it can be useful to read less and to write more, but also to talk more. So I think lots of people are always… Atas least Anna’s nodding. I’m happy now. I’m not totally off the mark, but I think a lot of people get really bogged down with, “I don’t know enough. I’m not an expert enough yet”, so the answer to that is to read more, but you have… I don’t know what that thing’s called in psychology, but basically the more you know about something, the more you know you don’t know, so you’re less of an expert in a sense. So reading doesn’t make you feel more confident in that sense. Reading doesn’t necessarily give you what you think it’s going to give you.

Dr James Fletcher:

What does give you that, I mean what gave me that, was talking to people. So going to the office and speaking to people, over coffee, you learn all sorts of things that you’d have never thought of. Just tacit little things about the culture of academia and how things work in the department. Even things that seem inconsequential that can be really useful. Also, talking extends to social media, so things like Twitter. I love Twitter and I have had conversations with professors and people I’d never have spoken to otherwise, but you can slide into the DMs. You can have a bit of a chat about things. You can always email people. They’re really nice.

Dr James Fletcher:

So, speaking to people can be useful, as opposed to just reading and trying to plough through everything that has been written on that subject, and then just writing. Even if it’s rubbish, write lots of stuff. See what works. See what doesn’t. You’ll see where they are gaps in your knowledge then that you do need to read, and you do need to read a paper on that. But, definitely I think writing is probably more useful than reading.

Adam Smith:

Write more than read more and I said completely the opposite in the last podcast, so if I ever find myself sitting there not knowing what to do, I take comfort in just feeling reading something makes me feel like I’m doing something, even if I’m not sure what to do. But, yeah, I can completely get behind writing something as well.

Adam Smith:

Anna, Chris, would you agree with James on that?

Dr Anna Volkmer:

Yes.

Dr Chris Hardy:

Yeah, obviously a combination is really good and you have to draw a line at some point. If you’re writing a literature review, there’s obviously an infinite amount of literature you could read, and at some point you’re going to have to say, enough is enough, I’m going to write this thing. Yeah, I think it’s the Dunning-Kruger effect, isn’t it? This is where if you know a little bit about a subject, you’re very confident but as soon as you learn a little bit more, the curve goes down and actually the more you know the less confident you are until you get to realize this. Super interesting, yeah.

Adam Smith:

Yeah, absolutely. Also as well, if you are going to do reading though, I think also varying your subject matter. I think we can just end up down kind of slightly tunnel vision, whereas broadening that out as well can give you a different perspective.

Adam Smith:

Chloe, is this something that you already do?

Chloe Tulip:

I think I would definitely agree with James that I’m a big talker. So, during my MSC for example, I had a study buddy and we would just talk at each other for probably like a whole day before we even wrote a word down, because then we could ask each other questions and it was just… It made the process so much faster. I’m a really slow writer and I do get crippled by the fact that I don’t know as much as I’d like to, so I do kind of just go off and have a chat with myself and I do look a bit odd. But, yeah that’s my approach.

Adam Smith:

Yeah, and that’s the trap to fall into isn’t it? The whole I can’t write because I don’t know. Anna, what do you read?

Dr Anna Volkmer:

I was just going to compare a PhD to having a baby. We have been comparing PhDs before we started the webinar to having a baby. I’ve always felt very guilty, (I have two children) for not reading enough about parenting, but what I’ve realized is that, many of my friends and family who have babies and read tons, get really paranoid and really worried about how they should parent, and lots of my friends and myself, who I probably read speech therapy things and I feel super guilty that I don’t read, but what I’ve realized is that I find it sometimes easier to just get on and be a mom. So I don’t ruminate and tear my hair out about how to do it. I just do it, which for me emotionally, seems more manageable. But I think, as James said, there are times when you need to read more. There are times when you need to read less and again also, and as Adam said, reading slightly outside of your realm is really healthy.

Dr Anna Volkmer:

So one of the things I started doing actually mid-way through, is I started doing regular reviews for an ear nose and throat magazine. So they asked me to read and just summarize in 150 words a couple of speech therapy articles from various speech therapy journals and it means that I have to read things that are not directly related to dementia and speech therapy, but it meant that I actually ended up reading things that are really transferable and really interesting and led me down paths I hadn’t thought of. So it was quite neat, and I get a box of wine every year.

Chloe Tulip:

Nice.

Dr James Fletcher:

And, I mean there’s that old adage isn’t there, that a good thesis is a finished one. So, even if you’re sitting there unable to write, just write what you can. It’s better to write something than nothing at all, and you can always go back and revise. It’s a marathon not a sprint isn’t it.

Adam Smith:

Thank you James. Chris, let’s come to you for your first tip.

Dr Chris Hardy:

Say, I was trying to think about what I found most helpful going through and I think one of the things I did quite early on, one of the post-docs in the lab at the time, she used to do this, which was to set up PubMed alerts for particular terms that I was interested in researching. So basically every day that there’s a new research article published about semantic dementia or frontal temporal dementia or primary progressive aphasia, I get an email with the papers that have been published in the last 24 hours, on those subjects, straight into my inbox. I’ve still got that set up to this day, and I think that’s a really, really simple thing to do, but one of the most helpful things that I found in staying up to date with the latest research. It’s a very nice succinct summary, as it’s only a couple of papers each day. I would just go in and have a quick look at the abstract. If there’s a paper that I’m really excited about reading, I’ll mark that to have a look at later.

Dr Chris Hardy:

But yeah, I think that’s one of the things that’s really simple to do, but I found really, really helpful.

Adam Smith:

Actually I’ve done the same. I think you can do it on… can’t remember what you just said you do. You can do it in Google as well. I’ve done exactly the same thing. Does anybody else have anything like that that they’ve done? That kind of practical system. James?

Dr James Fletcher:

Not necessarily, but I check all the hashtags on Twitter again. I mean, I go on about Twitter. I’m not on commission. It’s really good and informal. The great thing about Twitter is, it forces academics to write things very succinctly, which they’re never forced to do otherwise, so it’s genius. You get everything straight into your brain. If you run through a few hashtags and unfortunately a lot of them are about late American politics, you [crosstalk 00:24:04], but there are some gems in there. All the latest stuff comes up and you can follow all the key journals, because they all have accounts and they all tweet out everything that comes out. So I found that really useful. But again, the PubMed alerts are actually probably a better version of that, more systematic at least.

Adam Smith:

Yeah, I think hashtags are a bit forgotten about aren’t they? We all use them in our stuff, but remembering to actually search on them to find interesting things, I think is something we often don’t do. But again, I think there are tools online that you can do to set up alerts for certain hashtags as well. Thanks Chris.

Adam Smith:

Okay, we’re going to come around, back to the start of the circle again and come to you again… actually no, we’re going to come to you James, for your second top tip. I remember, I wasn’t going to go round in order, I’m going to come to-

Dr James Fletcher:

[crosstalk 00:24:59] off guard.

Adam Smith:

… James for number two.

Dr James Fletcher:

Okay, so my second one, again not going to work for everyone, and that’s cool, is to teach. So, I started Teaching first term. Got straight in there. You probably won’t love it at first, because I think what happens fairly early on is people get put in first year undergraduate seminars where you ask about the reading and no-one’s done the reading and there’s some silence, and then you tell them about the reading. But, gradually you start, you get a bit known, you start to get invited to give lectures on your specific area, and the joy of this is that, you learn loads through it. There’s nothing to make you learn a subject well like being forced to stand in front of a room of people and pretend that you know more than anyone else about it.

Dr James Fletcher:

I think actually, even today, my students probably don’t fully appreciate that most of the modules I lead end up in a paper. So over the course of those few months, while we’re going through certain ideas, it’s also really useful for me for working through them, and by the end of a module I’ve usually got a paper about something we’ve focused on during the module. So it’s great for you. It’s just brilliant practice in general in terms of speaking and presenting your ideas coherently, and also it’s really cool to engage in a different side of the department’s life. So often as a PhD student you’re in the… especially in a bigger department, you’re in the PhD student silo and as soon as you’re involved in the teaching in a meaningful way, you’re into a different set of meetings, interacting with a different set of people. You see a different side of the administration and how knowledge generation and transfer really works. So there are loads and loads of benefits for you for teaching.

Dr James Fletcher:

I think most people think of it as sort of a way to up your finances through the PhD, but actually there are loads more benefits than that.

Adam Smith:

I think it can give you some confidence as well, can’t it. Particularly if you’re going to have to start to present later on and you don’t want to be one of those people that turns downs opportunities to speak, because you’re not very confident about it. I think building up your confidence through teaching where you can, then makes you more willing to jump at opportunities to speak when you can, and that raises your profile and I think, if seeing people sit and listen to you gives you more confidence in the rest of your work and your writing as well and you start to realize that you do know your subject matter.

Dr James Fletcher:

It works really well and I think also you learn really quickly that actually just by virtue of being at a uni and being the person stuck at the front of the room when everyone comes in, all of a sudden you have a sort of ethos of expertise and all of a sudden people expect you to know a lot. Anyway, I mean, I remember my first year of my PhD giving a lecture on dementia and a geriatrician who I was teaching said “Obviously you know more about this than me”, and I just thought, “Wow, what a con.”

Adam Smith:

But you know, there is this thing of just being stood at the front of the room and certainly-

Dr James Fletcher:

You do know a fair bit already in the first year of your PhD, so it does give you that confidence and it teaches you a lot about how to communicate your ideas.

Dr Anna Volkmer:

I totally agree. I think you talked a lot about you get from it, but also what the students get from it and I think it’s a great way of disseminating your work as well. One of the reasons I decided to do a PhD as a speech and language therapist was because I wanted to impact my profession. So what I find really great about teaching, as a clinical academic speech therapist, is I can teach. I teach speech and language therapists, so I can disseminate my work to them. I can help them understand the breadth of their role. Like you say James, I teach on modules that have medics in them. I teach on modules that have other professionals in them, and many of those other professionals don’t know about the role of the speech and language therapist with things like primary progressive aphasia and the rare dementias, in particular where we have a great big role in terms of intervention.

Dr Anna Volkmer:

So, actually, I’ve found it a really great outlet to inspire and disseminate and feel confident as well.

Adam Smith:

Thank you James. I’m going to come to Chris next. Chris for your second tip.

Dr Chris Hardy:

Okay, so I think my next suggestion would be to take some time to focus on your career post-PhD. I think, I remember at points throughout my PhD I felt very guilty when I would try to think about my next steps and what I was going to do post-doc and if I was wasting research time when I should be thinking about what will come next, but I really think that’s the wrong attitude to have actually, and I think PhD, academia as a whole is a weird time when you’re on these fixed term contracts that you wouldn’t be on in most other sectors. So I think it’s really important that you take the time to plan out what you’d like to do next. What you’ll need to do for your CV to get there. We know that Fellowship applications, Scholar applications can probably take up a to a year in the making, so say having that foresight, that plan to take some time out each week maybe, each fortnight, just to work on where you want to go, and not feeling guilty about that being time away from your PhD I think is really important.

Adam Smith:

It’s an interesting point isn’t it? It’s about how far ahead do you think and at what point do you think it? I know from talking to some people that they can’t see beyond the next three months, to be quite honest, and haven’t got a clue about what they’re going to do post-PhD. Do you find it is helpful to at least have some clue of that Chris?

Dr Chris Hardy:

Yeah, I think so. I just think it’s really unfair that lots of PhD students get given stipends which is great, but they’re not that lucrative and you’re working exceptionally hard for not very much money. Then, I think on top of that, if you then fall off this cliff edge when you finish all of that work, you’re burnt out and you’re at the end of your PhD and you don’t have something lined up next, I think that’s really cruel. So I really think that we should be encouraging people to have those plans in place early on. I’d encourage people to take, even just half an hour a week, half an hour a fortnight, and mark that as, okay this is career time or next steps time. I need this week I’m going to change, edit my CV. This week I’m going to email this person to see if they might have opportunities in this sort of research area afterwards. Just do one thing a week perhaps, just to focus on your future. I think that’s really important.

Adam Smith:

Absolutely and Anna, I’m vaguely recalling a conversation you and I had, probably six, 12 months ago now, about in the café at Welcome Trusts Café culture conversations about academic careers and how ideally there ought to be some kind of new job plan that combined a job with a PhD so when you came out the other end there was a new type of contract that involved a PhD with a job that went with it, for afterwards, so you could have at least a five year contract with a couple of years work afterwards to guarantee some of that. I mean, those kind of jobs don’t exist and I guess many of us are lucky in so much as they end up working for supervisors who think you’re so great that they find ways to keep you as is so often the case, but not everybody.

Adam Smith:

Chris, it is worrying. People do drop off the edge then and that’s why so many people are lost to academia, or lost to dementia particularly, because those career steps are tricky. So taking time out to think about that early on. Would you agree Anna?

Dr Anna Volkmer:

Absolutely. Yeah, it kind of links in with my second top tip, which was don’t be too hard on yourself.

Adam Smith:

Go on, let’s move into that. Go on.

Dr Anna Volkmer:

Well, basically I guess what I was thinking, I meet a lot of the people in my department who want to do PhDs and they think that when you do a PhD you’re just getting the funding, that means that you’re this incredibly wise, clever, immensely like… you’ve hit the top. You’re at the pinnacle of your career, but actually what I found really helpful was to reformulate the PhD and actually say, “No, no, the PhD is actually a training program in a way, to train you in research methods to prepare you for the next stage of your career.” When I’ve spoken to people like that, and formulated it like that, it’s also made it seem less scary. So, many of the people I’ve spoken to are thinking about doing PhDs, one of the big barriers has been they’re just scared of whether they can do it, and when I’ve described it much more like a training program, they’ve realized that that’s more achievable, more doable.

Dr Anna Volkmer:

I’ve actually also realized that I didn’t need to know everything before I started the PhD. The point was, that I’d learn it whilst I was doing the PhD and with that, came learning how to build my clinical academic career. I think, thinking about what you can bring to your domains that aren’t just within your research, is really helpful. So during my PhD I realized that this is the time to do all the things that I can’t do when I was a clinician. So for example, what I really wanted to do, was one day sit on a NICE guideline. So a NICE guideline committee advert came up, and I applied for it and I was on a NICE guideline committee during my PhD and it was really fun and really exciting. But now, it also looks quite good on my CV, both clinically and academically and it’s contributed to my career development. But, it wasn’t totally research.

Dr Anna Volkmer:

So I think that idea of making that time to plan for your career, and not being hard on yourself thinking you should actually know everything, was a really helpful strategy that my supervisor actually really kept reinforcing, so I probably was quite lucky in that way.

Adam Smith:

Chloe, is this something that… How does that advice sit with you?

Chloe Tulip:

It’s really nice actually, because I had a similar experience. I came into the office. I was like, “Oh got a PhD, there we are. I’m sorted. Great. Let’s do this”, and then lots of people just like, “No, no, no, this is like the first step on a different ladder.” I was like, “What?” So it was adjusting my expectations and it did kind of bring me that awareness of, you need to think about the next steps, and I think that’s why it’s really helpful to get advice from you guys, who’ve been through it, because it does feel reassuring to know that you can work on those steps without it really encroaching onto your research time, because it’s all part of it I guess. As you say, the analogy of using it like a training program, as you were saying, I was feeling more and more reassured as you were talking, so that was a really helpful tip, thank you.

Adam Smith:

Thank you Anna. She’s useful. Thanks Chloe.

Adam Smith:

So we’re onto the third and final round of tips now, so I’m going to come back to you, Chris.

Dr Chris Hardy:

Okay, so my third tip touches on a point James raised earlier about teaching. For me at the start of my PhD I really struggled with public speaking. Absolutely hated it. I had a panic attack the first time I tried to do anything. It was awful and it’s something I still don’t particularly enjoy to this day, but I made a rule for myself after that, that I would never say no to an opportunity if anyone invites me to give a talk somewhere, I’d always say yes if I could within reason.

Dr Chris Hardy:

Alongside that, I love data so I’ve been keeping a spread sheet of all the talks I’ve ever given, which is like 50 now. But, I give a subjective rating of my performance. I give different metrics on each row of the spread sheet and it’s quite nice because it fluctuates. Sometimes I give a bad talk. Sometimes I don’t feel so confident and other times I feel really confident. It’s nice looking at the different variables that might help explain that. It’s also nice looking, if you plot it, you can see a trend upwards in terms of how I think it’s going, how confident I feel.

Dr Chris Hardy:

It’s not completely linear, there’s a few blips in there, but it is quite nice. So, I guess, the message I would say is that the PhD is a really good opportunity for you to practice things that you’re not good at, and nobody expects you to be perfect. Everyone is so sympathetic to you, because we all know what it’s like to be standing in front of an audience. It’s a genuinely scary thing, but by and large people are going to be kind to you if it looks like you’re struggling, as I was at certain points. They’re not out to get you. They’re there to be supportive a lot of the time and I think it’s a really good opportunity that you don’t necessarily have so much afterwards to really try to cultivate those skills and get comfortable, but as comfortable as you can in those sorts of environments.

Adam Smith:

So, building up your confidence whilst you’ve still got the kind of, if you like, that safety blanket of being able to say, “I’m a PhD student”, so then when you’re talking at the big conferences later, Anna’s desperate to chip in here. Come on Anna.

Dr Anna Volkmer:

I’ve seen Chris talk so many times, and he’s a brilliant speaker and-

Dr Chris Hardy:

Thanks Anna.

Dr Anna Volkmer:

[crosstalk 00:39:31]. I wondered, if you’re tracking your own feeling about how you’re going, isn’t that a bit subjective? Should you not get an objective rating as well?

Dr Chris Hardy:

Yeah, I mean ideally we’d have independent raters of my performance, but I haven’t gone quite that deep yet. There’s a load of different metrics. I try to capture how well I think it’s been received by the audience. Things like how well did I sleep the night before? I think even how much coffee have I had in the morning. It’s quite micro.

Adam Smith:

Wow. You feel amazing after that, right? I absolutely 100% agree with you on this. I was asked to give a talk to a hospital trust board and at the time I got this dropped on me very late at night, the night before. This is years ago, 10 years ago now, but I was asked to present to a trust board about MRSA and their MRSA rates. We’d just finished a review of this hospital and I was the one asked to give the feedback to them after my colleague had phoned in sick. I got these slides sent to me at midnight the night before and the trust board decided it would be better if they got everybody senior from the hospital to come in and get these results together, so there was every consultant from the hospital, all the board, the non-execs, and it was an absolute car crash. I literally nearly passed out at the lectern that they’d laid out and everything.

Adam Smith:

After that I avoided like the plague, every speaking opportunity for years afterwards. I had some amazing opportunities to go talk in different countries and at conferences and things like that, and I absolutely flatly refused. I would come out in a cold sweat even just at the idea of speaking. It took me a long time to build that confidence back up, so I think if you are going to speak, definitely making sure you’ve prepared. Preparation is absolutely key. You’ve got to really own that slide set and be confident on your subject matter. I think if you do that and you do a good job, it’s a skill for life is that. I think young people, I say this is an old bloke, young people are great aren’t they? They get opportunities right from school now, standing in front of the school and talking is something that’s a key skill from an early age, and if you can do that in a PhD, absolutely 100% agree.

Adam Smith:

I’m mostly over my phobia now, mostly. What about you Chloe? Do you take every opportunity to talk? Are you a good presenter?

Chloe Tulip:

Well, I mean, as we’ve mentioned, I do get the odd Velcro mouth when I get really nervous. But I mean, I’ve done a few presentations before and I’ve always felt like I was sort of quaking inside, but the feedback’s been like, “Were you nervous?” It’s been a real disparity between how I felt and how other people thought I presented. So, I did get some really good advice from a clinical psychologist, who just said, “Fake it until you make it”, and I had a presentation a few months back and I did and five minutes in, I started to get those nerves building up. All the saliva was going from my mouth and I thought, “Oh gosh, here we go.” Then I just started to act really relaxed and I leant back on the chair and then within two minutes I sort of re-set and I was fine, and it went okay then.

Adam Smith:

Not over thinking it. I think, whilst you want to prepare, kind of not over thinking it is important. If this really is a problem for you, if you really are a shy kind of person, or you really can’t do this, it’s all good and well us sitting here saying, go present, but you just can’t, I think there are courses out there that people can help. You can see people and get help with this and I know a few people that have turned to things like performing and acting. Like, getting involved in local amateur dramatics and things like that, as make new friends and done it in a safe way. But, if you can’t-

Dr Anna Volkmer:

Yeah, most universities have courses on how to present and I did one actually. They advised me that the loud and piercing voice that my husband hates, was actually an attribute. So I feel better about my life.

Adam Smith:

And the children love it, right?

Dr Anna Volkmer:

The shrill sound.

Adam Smith:

Thank you Chris. I think that’s a good piece of advice. Anna, we’re going to come to you for your third and final top tip.

Dr Anna Volkmer:

So my third and final top tip is, make friends or network as it’s called in the profession. I didn’t really think I had to… I didn’t really understand the value of it, but I really love people, so I automatically am a bit of a chatterbox. It’s a professional risk as a speech therapist, but it’s been immensely useful for things like building links with people who I could then go to when I was planning my future career, my next steps, but also within my PhD. So one concrete example is Chris. So, I met Chris just before I started my PhD. We’ve become colleagues and friends, and one of the problems I had on my PhD was that I found statistics incredibly overwhelming and difficult and I’m not very good at it. I’m really good at talking to people, but I find statistics really challenging. I realized over the course of my PhD that I don’t actually have to be good at everything if I can find people who can help me be good at things.

Dr Anna Volkmer:

So I have met with Chris on a number of occasions and he’s given me support and advice around statistics and made me feel much more confident about what I’m doing, and how I’m doing it, because I still remain, and forever will remain, one of those people… it’s terribly stereotypical as a female, and I hate that, but it’s what I’m worried about. I did get an A in my GCSE maths. Look, just putting that out there, but-

Adam Smith:

Chris doesn’t believe you.

Dr Anna Volkmer:

I know-

Dr Chris Hardy:

I think you’re aging yourself Anna, because I think they’ve used a number system for GCSE for quite a while now.

Dr Anna Volkmer:

Oh no, what a nine isn’t it? A nine, or no an eight. An eight, I don’t know.

Adam Smith:

Thank you Anna. So, I think that’s good advice. Make friends, network and if you seek out people who can help you. I know we’ve talked a little bit about, James has talked a bit about Twitter. No I’m teasing. But Twitter is a great place for stuff like that and I’m conscious as well that there are other online platforms that are good for this with the research community, LinkedIn and things like that as well.

Adam Smith:

Okay, James… No, I’m going to come back to you at the end Chloe. James, let’s go to you for your last.

Dr James Fletcher:

If it makes you feel any better about the gender stereotypes, I also… Whatever the number equivalent of literacy is, I have that. Show me a number and I’ll start sweating. So, my final point was, which I think sort of builds on the few things that people have said, is to sort of keep a sense of perspective on what a PhD actually is. A PhD is a qualification. We exist in universities. So it’s really, really good, but in the real world, not only do most people not know what it is, those who do probably think, you’re just a glorified student.

Dr James Fletcher:

I think it’s good to keep a sense of perspective on it, and the reason for that is that I saw over the years lots of awful cases. I mean, people talk about PhD and mental health. They talk about people you know really breaking down, even in front of you just collapsing and these things do happen. Then we exist in that culture of wellness, balance, mindfulness, all this nonsense, as if the problem is yours. It’s not. It makes total sense for you to not always be having a good time, because you’re not paid very much. You’re massively overworked, especially in your first year, you probably are out of your depth right, because if you were the expert, you’d writing your PhD now and submit it. You wouldn’t do another two years of it.

Dr James Fletcher:

So, you still have a way to go because it’s a training process, and you’re going to get loads better, and you’ll look back and think, “I was daft then, and now I know so much more.” You will probably think the same again in five years’ time. So I think it’s good to keep a sense of perspective, to remember that some of it’s not going to be great, but that’s not your inadequacy, that’s the system that you’re in that isn’t great and doesn’t treat people that great all the time. The thing you can do about that is, I think what’s already been said, have a community. Go in, make friends, people who are going through the same types of things as you, that’s what really gets you through it in the end.

Dr James Fletcher:

I think, I realized this a lot towards the end of my PhD that all this sort of academic methods theory stuff, probably wasn’t as important as the people. It was all the network of people around me really pulled me through it. Everything meaningful that I got out of the PhD came from the people around me. So yeah, you get what you give really. Offer to review someone’s paper. Offer to have coffee with someone, and people will reciprocate.

Adam Smith:

Finding that kind of… I mean obviously you can look to your supervisors and they’re there, but I think also as well, that whole, your mentors don’t have to be your supervisors as well. I think having somebody who’s kind of one step removed who you can go to and talk about things is helpful.

Adam Smith:

Thank you very much James. I’ve got a list here, I’m going to recap, but before I go back to the recap, I want to come back to you Chloe, because obviously you’re nine months in. Before we move onto the summary, is there anything, any questions? Have you got any questions particularly for people?

Chloe Tulip:

I think all your top tips are really good. I’ve actually already written some down to go and do immediately. So no, I can’t think of any to mind. I think your point about building a community around you of people who are in the same position is so key, because even as only nine months in, I did feel a difference, because I think about two months in I hadn’t really met people who were doing PhDs and then after that I was part of this little community where everybody is messaging each other every day, and just… I remember crying at my computer when I was trying to stats, and within 10 minutes I had loads of like, “You can do this”, messages and then within an hour I had a lecturer in statistics at Swansea giving me a Zoom call, so that was great. So, yeah, thank you for all of your advice.

Adam Smith:

Just to do a quick recap on the nine top tips that we’ve had from everybody here today. So the first one was from Anna which is about planning. No matter how great or little detail you can go into, having some kind of plan to help add some structure around that is helpful.

Adam Smith:

Don’t worry too much is added from James around… I think James found it particularly useful to treat this like a job and have a fixed day structure to it. We know that doesn’t work for everybody, but if you are sitting there wondering what to do, maybe trying that as a default if you are struggling and then work around it from there.

Adam Smith:

Don’t just read, write as well was one of the tips.

Adam Smith:

Setting up alerts on the systems to keep you abreast of what’s going on in your field.

Adam Smith:

Teaching and taking opportunities to do public speaking, to build your confidence whilst… I’m not going to say while it’s not important, but while you’ve got that safety blanket of being able to fall back on, well I’m a student. I’m still learning. I think building up your confidence during that time, while people are going to give you a break I think is a good opportunity as well.

Adam Smith:

Don’t be so hard on yourself is from Anna and we talked about that last week as well. Exactly that, don’t be so hard on yourself. Give yourself a break. Nobody expects you to know everything on day one, and don’t be afraid to go and talk to your supervisor.

Adam Smith:

What else have we got in here? About creating friends and networks and surrounding yourself with people who understand. We talked about this in the episode two weeks ago, about family are great for emotional support, but they haven’t got a clue when it comes to really understanding what you’re doing. Was that your point Chloe? Your sister works in finance and-

Chloe Tulip:

Yeah, just she throws tax jargon at me, and I’m like, “Okay, okay.”

Adam Smith:

They’ve finally just realized you’re not going to be able to work in A&E at the end of becoming a doctor.

Chloe Tulip:

Well, my mom does say in Tesco sometimes that I’m going to be a medical doctor. I’m like, “Mom, no. Stop staying that”, but I think she liked it, so I’ll give that one to her.

Adam Smith:

Yeah, moms have it.

Adam Smith:

Maintaining perspective. We did talk about careers as well last week about, when it can be hard, particularly those universities that pay stipends in quarterly chunks and if you’re just about making ends meet, having a financial pressure as well as putting pressure on yourself to meet deadlines and study is tricky. But, there’s help in the institutions. I don’t think anybody should be embarrassed to talk about money and some of these difficulties, whether that’s about having some of those low moments, or things that are keeping you awake in the night, whether that’s money or stress or relationships, or the accommodation you’re living in, or the relationship with your supervisor, which we know they’re not always perfect, is to talk about this. Really do talk.

Adam Smith:

Thank you very much everybody. I went away and read a couple of blogs beforehand and some other people’s top tips. I’m going to whip through 14 top tips from other people, which we may or may not have covered.

Adam Smith:

Practical things, so number one, maintain a healthy work/life balance as well. Remember to go to the pub. Chloe, do you go to the… We talked about this before, Chloe does roller derby.

Chloe Tulip:

Yes.

Adam Smith:

So, you’ve got a good work/life… Am I right in thinking, or is this just a stereotype, but roller derby players drink hard, right? So, you-

Chloe Tulip:

Maybe my team’s the exception, because every time I invite them to the pub-

Adam Smith:

They don’t go to the pub?

Chloe Tulip:

… they’re like, “Oh, I’ve got work in the morning.” “Okay.”

Dr Anna Volkmer:

Drew Barrymore in that film about roller derby.

Chloe Tulip:

[crosstalk 00:55:27] point there-

Dr Anna Volkmer:

Drew Barrymore was really hard and they used to drink and live hard and work hard and roller skate hard. They were so cool.

Chloe Tulip:

Oh.

Adam Smith:

It’s a stereotype. They’re all professional people and opposed to violence in real life. So maintaining a health work/life balance is important.

Adam Smith:

Discussing expectations with your supervisor. I think getting a good relationship with your supervisor can make all the difference, and bribe them with cake. We talked about that last week.

Adam Smith:

Read as much as you can.

Adam Smith:

Write copious notes.

Adam Smith:

Find a good place to work. Finding a nice place to work. Your spot in the library can be helpful. Getting your desk set up, particularly at the moment with Coronavirus and the Pandemic, having the right bit of kit is particularly helpful. It’s not helpful if you’ve got a 10 year old laptop that crashes all the time and you lose all your work. So, getting your kit right.

Adam Smith:

Start writing early. Don’t leave it all for the last six months.

Adam Smith:

Set yourself some realistic goals.

Adam Smith:

Use to do lists.

Adam Smith:

The best thesis is a finished one.

Adam Smith:

Find supportive friends and people who understand you and don’t hide from your family.

Adam Smith:

Backup your work. Backup your work. It’s just practical, right? That would be your top tip, right Chris? You’ve had practical advice so far, backup would be one of yours.

Dr Chris Hardy:

Yeah, well I remember losing two chapters of my PhD through not backing up my work, so I would endorse that. I clearly repressed that, because that would have been my top, top, top, tip if I’d realized that closer to the time. Yeah, that’s a good one.

Adam Smith:

I mean, things have moved… Most stuff’s in the Cloud now anyway right, but I think don’t assume-

Dr Chris Hardy:

I think the Cloud was around when I did my PhD, I just didn’t understand what it was. But, anyway.

Adam Smith:

Socialize is on this list.

Adam Smith:

Present at every opportunity. Do you know what, you guys have ticked all the boxes. Present at every opportunity is on here as well.

Adam Smith:

Don’t compare yourself to others is an important one as well, and don’t stress. It will all come, but don’t put too high expectations on yourself.

Adam Smith:

So that’s it Chloe, we’ve fixed you now. You can sort… This is it!

Chloe Tulip:

I’m just going to write it now.

Adam Smith:

I think you’re set to actually… No, I mean in all seriousness, I think the purpose of these two podcasts really was to kind of give people some confidence and just to show a PhD is possible for everybody and all different kinds of people and everybody here has come out the other side and I think all these, it’s all great, there might be people sat there listening going, “Oh yeah, well it’s all good enough for you. That’s not what it’s like in real life”, but it really is, and I think if you can apply some of these things into your working patterns, it really will help.

Adam Smith:

Before we finish, I’m just going to ask really quickly, is there anything you hated about being a PhD student that you would definitely want to ditch from day… That’s it, we’re just ditching that. Let’s go. James, is there anything you’d want to ditch from being a student that you wished didn’t exist?

Dr James Fletcher:

Procedural ethics. That can get in the scene.

Adam Smith:

Ethics?

Dr James Fletcher:

No procedural ethics. Ethics are really, really important. Procedural ethics are an absolute mess. If you want to speak to people with dementia you are treated with scepticism that’s reserved for the worst criminals, like you are going to do something really evil. Why would you even want to speak to people with dementia? So procedural ethics is a bit of a problem at the moment.

Adam Smith:

Procedural ethics is going in room 101 or getting massively improved. What about you, Anna?

Dr Anna Volkmer:

Probably the perception that doing a PhD is an enormous privilege. It is a privilege, but equally I think that… so for example in speech therapy, it’s just a different career choice. Someone once said to me right at the start, “Well you would do a PhD because you’re really good about boasting about yourself”, she said and then she went, “Oh no, no, I don’t mean that. I mean promoting the discipline.” I was a bit horrified. I said, “Oh my God.” I went home and cried for a long time.

Adam Smith:

This sounds terrible. I hope she’s not still a friend.

Dr Anna Volkmer:

No, but I think it’s this idea that actually… She never was. It was a random person in the discipline, but I think it’s that idea that actually, if we were in any other discipline or any other profession, this would be something we would do and I think it’s really important to disseminate and talk about things and think that this is a career choice. It comes back to it being a job I think as well. It’s not something like a treat. It’s a job.

Adam Smith:

Absolutely, thank you Anna. Chris?

Dr Chris Hardy:

I think I’d advocate for just a fair wage instead of the stipend system that we have at the moment, which I think is cruel.

Adam Smith:

A fair… absolutely.

Dr Chris Hardy:

So yeah, I think proper financial remuneration to PhD students for the hard work they do, yep.

Adam Smith:

Absolutely. Chloe, have you got any… I mean, you’re there right now. What do you hate about your week that you want to stop?

Chloe Tulip:

Honestly, I’m not going… nothing.

Adam Smith:

You like it. She just loves it, it’s great.

Chloe Tulip:

I do really like it.

Adam Smith:

Well, thank you very much everybody for taking the time out, Chloe, Anna, Chris and James, for joining us today. In all seriousness, I think if anybody out there is listening, is struggling, there is help out there. You should turn to the people around you for support. Look to your university for the support that they do offer. Talk to your supervisor. We also have a WhatsApp group on our website. We have a WhatsApp early career research community, so if you are just wanting somebody to… I think somebody the other week said, “I’m putting in a Fellowship application, I wondered if somebody who’s done that before would have a look at it?” She got a couple of replies and people offered. So, we’ve got a community there to help. So, please do join. You can find out details on how to do that through the Ask an Expert part of our website. Even if you just want a chat with somebody, there’s people there who will be in the same situation as you to talk to.

Adam Smith:

We have profiles on all our panellists on our website, including details on how to find them on Twitter. If you would like to ask any follow up questions of individuals, I know they’re all very welcoming, so you can reach out through that platform as well. Details on that are all again on our website.

Adam Smith:

Finally, please do remember to like, subscribe, review our podcast which you’ll find on iTunes and SoundCloud and wherever you find your podcasts. Thank you very much everybody for joining us, and we’ll look forward to welcoming you all back again soon.

Adam Smith:

Thank you.

Voice Over:

Brought to you by dementiaresearcher.nihr.ac.uk in association with Alzheimer’s Research UK and Alzheimer’s Society. Supporting early career dementia researchers across the world.

END