You Are Here

Tag: limitations

Nathan

There Are Limits

Daily Post

A PhD journey is bounded in many ways.

You can only read a finite number of papers and articles to build up your knowledge.

There’s a cap on the number of words that a thesis can reasonably contain.

You have only so many productive hours in any working day and pushing beyond that will not bring greater progress.

And you have hundreds of days to do the work but those days will eventually come to an end – and then you’ll have weeks to prepare for your viva.

 

Consider your limits as you start to get ready for submission and your viva. What do they show you?

Perhaps there were other things you could have done, but if you’re a typical PhD candidate those limits will show that you are knowledgeable. You embraced your work and studied. The limits of your PhD journey will demonstrate that you worked hard enough to get things done. You’ll have a thesis with thousands and thousands of words as proof that you stayed determined.

There are limits that come in many forms, but none detract from the picture presented of you and your work. You did something. You made something that wasn’t there before and you can be proud of what you’ve made.

Nathan

Why Not?

Daily Post

Make a quick list, five things you wanted to do during your PhD, but didn’t. Perhaps you had wanted to explore a certain topic, but didn’t, or maybe you wanted to attend a conference but couldn’t.

Why not?

Examine your list and ask yourself why you didn’t get to them. What stopped you?

  • Did you try but ultimately not succeed?
  • Were you busy and so had to pass on the opportunity?
  • Did you realise, upon exploring something, that there was more involved than you could realistically manage?
  • Were you given advice that perhaps it was not a good use of your time and efforts?

If your answer is yes for any of these then there’s no real issue, is there? Your examiners might be interested in knowing why you didn’t do something. It’s useful to unpick and have clear reasons.

Remember your examiners are more likely to be interested in what you did rather than what you didn’t do. You could spend a little time asking yourself “Why not?” but it’s more useful to spend time exploring what you did.