I did it! I submitted my thesis, got through my four-hour-long viva, and passed with minor corrections. After four-and-a-half years, I finally got my PhD in physics from the University of Liverpool.

My thesis was on neutron tagging at Super-Kamiokande, a neutrino observatory in Japan. I first got interested in neutrinos towards the end of my undergraduate degree at Queen Mary University of London, so naturally I applied to do a PhD at universities with great neutrino physics groups. I was fortunate enough to be offered a place at Liverpool and began my doctoral studies in October 2018. The COVID pandemic during my PhD did present some challenges and extended the original length of my degree, but thankfully I submitted my thesis in March 2023.

No degree is worth harming your mental health

After an educational journey as long (and sometimes arduous) as a doctoral degree, it is natural to wonder what you could have done differently to make the entire experience a little easier. So here I offer five tips for those on their PhD journey that helped me during my studies – or that I wish I’d been told beforehand.

As no two routes to a doctoral degree are alike, my advice is naturally very broad. And rather than focusing simply on the work, I have also tried to suggest ways to bolster your motivation and wellbeing as well. No degree is worth harming your mental health, and given the dire stats regarding PhD student mental health in the UK, it is something that needs to be kept in mind.

With all this said, here are five ways to make the process a little smoother.

1 Work according to your energy levels – and don’t constrain yourself to a routine if you feel you can’t

At the start of my PhD I was told “treat it like a 9-to-5”. That’s all well and good, provided you don’t have meetings outside these hours, conferences to attend, deadlines to meet, or experiments that need checking overnight – all of which you most likely will have in some form or another over the course of your studies.

Don’t feel like you have to stick to the same routine every day

Instead, something that worked for me (especially towards the end of writing my thesis) was working when I felt like it, when the momentum grabbed me. This naturally increased the closer to thesis submission: you are carried through by adrenaline from the looming deadline.

But this approach applies in earlier years as well – don’t feel like you have to stick to the same routine every day. If your brain switches off a couple hours prior to 5 p.m., that’s fine. I tended to fall into a slump in the afternoon, when I would switch off, leave the office, and work in the evening instead. And sometimes I would hit a wall mid-week, but felt a bit more motivated at the weekend.

There’s no point over-exerting yourself when there are no fruits to be born from your intellectual labour, and it’s definitely not worth risking burnout over. You’re allowed to make your own hours more than you would with a “conventional job”, so make the most of it.

2 Make a continuous effort to connect with the field in general – not just strictly your own work

This is incredibly easy to preach, but a lot harder to practise. For many PhD students, the everyday minutiae of your research is a far cry from what attracted you to the field in the first place. And it sucks: it’s hard to feel how, for example, the compiler error you’ve been stuck on for two days relates to what you enjoy learning about in physics and what drove you to your field of research. You can’t see the wood for the trees, and you feel lost.

But remember, everything is connected. To see that, try to reinforce your surrounding knowledge and understanding of your field. Take part in journal clubs, read papers from other similar experiments, talk to others about their analyses, and find similarities to yours.

I’ll admit, it’s difficult to motivate yourself to do this. Why waste time reading stuff that won’t fix the error you’re stuck on? But I definitely wish I had done far more of it during my PhD. It’s all about bringing yourself back to where your mind wants to engage with physics, and is ultimately more about motivation than results. This is how education and learning should be. But to a physics PhD student – who will have been through an education system more devoted to exams and results than instilling a love of learning – it is difficult to adjust to this mindset.

3 Start writing your theory and literature chapters as early as you can

This is, again, much easier said than done, but it does make the months leading up to thesis submission a lot easier. I started writing at the beginning of my third year, but I still feel as though I could have started earlier.

The benefit of getting this done earlier isn’t just about making submission easier, but also about improving wellbeing and motivation as well. Say you’re in a bit of a rut around some results analysis – fair enough, everyone hits stumbling blocks. Rather than trudging on, why not take a break and write some of your thesis theory chapter or prepare your literature review.

Not only will writing feel like you have done something concrete, which will boost your morale, it will also refresh your broader knowledge of the field. And while it may not be directly related to the analysis result you want to get out, sometimes thinking about something else gives your brain a chance to come up with new ideas. Plus, anything that counts towards your thesis is helpful, so don’t hesitate to start writing early.

4 Document when someone says something positive about your work

PhD students are often told that a key part of becoming a researcher is having faith in your own work and results, instead of relying too heavily on the opinions of others. If there is criticism, we’re meant to not take it as a personal reflection of our abilities, and, in theory, we shouldn’t. But the truth is, we’re human and ultimately social creatures – and the human brain sadly remembers negative information more vividly than positive information. In a degree as challenging as a PhD, and a field filled with sometimes obstinate academics, you can hear and remember a lot more criticism than you do praise.

To counteract this, I started doing something that could be considered a little strange – I made a note every time a supervisor, a postdoc, a collaborator or even a friendly colleague in the office said something nice about my work. I wrote the comment down in a Word document, and when work got tough, I pulled it up to read through. Odd as it may seem, it helped to lift my mood when I needed it.

5 Treat your viva like a performance

An academic once told me that a viva “is about the ability to perform” and honestly, this was a great insight. Your viva is your chance to showcase your knowledge about your work and explain it to your examiners. Given the fact you’ve probably spent four or more years on it, you’ll know it inside out.

Nobody knows your thesis and PhD better than you

Remember that you are allowed to take an annotated copy of your thesis in with you, so spend a couple of weeks going through it, annotating it thoroughly and learning the physics around what is written in your literature review. You could be asked about anything in the broader field, so pull out your previous degree notes and brush up on the (relevant) basics. If you’re asked a question you don’t immediately know the answer to, take a minute or so to think, and vocalize this thinking process so your examiners can maybe guide you to an answer.

Waiting for the viva is much scarier than the viva itself, so try not to fret or stress about it too much. Sure, that’s once again easier said than done, but remember nobody knows your thesis and PhD better than you, and those few hours in a viva will be over before you know it. Doing a PhD is far from easy, but trust me when I say that it’ll all work out.

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• Source: https://physicsworld.com/a/how-to-survive-a-physics-phd/