1-year phd check-in
It's been a year since I started my PhD (01/07/2019) so I thought I'd check in and write down my ups and downs, things I learned so far, etc.
Anyone reading this, feel free to use/adapt these questions to check in with your own progress, whether you are a (first year) PhD student or not!
1. What's the topic of your PhD?
The role of peers in the development of internalizing problems. I will also be studying the development of autonomy across school transitions.
2. So, how's it going?
According to plan! I'm working on the draft for my first presenting which I'll be presenting at an (online…) conference in two months and will then be sent off for publication. Data collection is… quite something!
3. What are the most important things you have done in the past year?
I took responsibility in setting up and carrying out extensive data collection among ~300 adolescents, learned a lot of useful things (both by myself and in formal courses), worked on my first paper, set up a coding scheme.
4. What have you learned in the past year?
I gained a lot of formal knowledge on statistical analyses (mostly for longitudinal data). On a more personal level, I learned that it's not a bad thing to be different, to be "the odd one out". I am the only one in the department studying my topic, and I think that made people really uninterested in my interest, but the opposite was actually true! Also, the fact that I don't know something that other people already learned about does not make me stupid.
I am still learning how futile comparison to others is. No two PhD trajectories are the same for so. many. reasons. I still compare myself to others, simply because I want to know if I'm on track, but looking at others is not the way to go. It's better to talk about it with your supervisor.
5. What was the highlight? In other words, what was a moment that you really happy to be in this degree?
When I was presenting my research plans on a small conference on peer relations, people were really interested and came to talk to me afterwards about my plans and possible collaborations. As mentioned, no one in my department works on this topic, and it was so great to be in a group that is as invested in the topic as I am!
6. What was this year's low, or, what was the moment you came closest to quitting?
There are, sadly, two that come to mind immediately. The first was when data collection was at its busiest. I + 2 other PhD students had to take over tasks from basically 1.4fte. Even though my contract is for 32 hrs/week I usually worked closer to 50. Now, the three of us collectively refer to this hell as "October", but basically spans the whole of September-December. (Luckily, our time has now been expanded by 2.5fte and we are not stressed about data collection anymore most of the time!)
The second was in February when there were some tasks involving coordinating unwilling students (who had to meet requirements) that were mentally draining me and at one point I just starting crying when my colleague asked how I was doing. At this point, luckily I had more experience and knew who to talk to about this issue so it was fixed quite fast!
7. What was a big fail moment?
I went on the yearly writing-week, where 15 of us would sit in a cabin and write all day. I felt a lot of pressure to join, even though I didn't really have anything to write on. I felt miserable ALL week. Could not focus at all, and would often go to the toilet just to cry. I was homesick and felt incapable and worthless. It's maybe more sad than a fail, but I feel like all of this could have been avoided if I'd been honest with myself: I don't WANT to go!
8. Lastly, what's the thing you're most proud of doing in the past year
That one time I had three weeks between receiving the data set and abstract submission that I cleaned the data, learned a new software & analysis, and ran all my analyses (three times, because my supervisors and I couldn't make up our minds), interpreted the results and wrote the abstracts in those weeks.
And generally the fact that I have a first draft of my paper that hopefully will be published one day. Of course it's not there yet, but I remember being 18 and writing assignments, not believing that anything I wrote would ever be worthwhile.
