Untold Story of a PhD Student

Embarking on PhD’ is most difficult endeavor to undertake. Not only does it consume years together but the dropout rate for PhDs’ are quite high. I am not sure if an acronym ‘PhD’ has historically lacked a precise definition because Doctor of Philosophy would be ambiguous as PhD holders are not necessarily philosophers, unless the degree is earned in philosophy. In America, Europe, Asia or Africa, completing a PhD programme can take five years or more. That is 1825 days or 8 percent of your existence if you live up to 65 years. The programme is typically broken down into 1-2 years of course work followed by 3-5 years of original research to produce.

Many people start PhD with a vague idea and spend first 2 years to figure out the novel aspect they want to pursue and many are unaware about the target audience they want to reach through their findings. The fact is that they find themselves trapped in a poor research culture (mostly in developing countries) that turns them out to be clueless creatures.

Like any other PhD student, I was constantly having the dull feelings as why I put myself in this tight spot. Why I allowed MS Word and MS Excel to become such a big part of my life. I may be lying if I deny that I have never felt so low, so bleak, so tensed and so despairing. There were times when I ended up saying that I hate my life. Not surprisingly, most of PhD students’ misery revolves round their incompetent and career obsessed supervisors who treat them like rubbish. They find themselves in such position of power that their students are afraid to stand up to them.

Some supervisors are like ghosts appearing rarely for a fleeting moment and their students are likely to meet them at conferences than at universities. Others are always around, yet they fail to dwell upon the work of their students. Similarly some students try to have frequent meetings with their supervisors but they fail to find a single good suggestion out of them. At times supervisors tend to be hostile, aggressive and use offensive language to humiliate their students. The intensity of terror goes to the extent that if a Ph.D student woke up late in the morning and found four missed calls from his supervisor, he will certainly not move towards the washroom because it has scared him already. Unfortunately some students are even forced for “other favours” compromise if they want doctorate before their expected time.

Most doctoral students actually see their supervisors as significant obstacles to timely completion. This may be one of the reasons as why many students shell out their PhD dreams after spending a substantial amount of time into it. The funny thing is that most of the supervisors have a bad reputation in the department yet they manage to get students to work for them.

However, it is not a legitimate thing to say that one should not pursue a PhD under such trauma and tension. I presume that it is a common issue where PhD students are not valued up to their caliber and are exploited most of the times in many regards. I believe research is a painstaking process. It must be pursued meticulously, honestly and with an open mind to achieve the required level of objectivity and validity. The researcher must always have such factors in mind or else he would succumb to the temptation to ‘massage’ the data to furnish the expected findings.

Remember one doesn’t have to be super intelligent to acquire a PhD. If that was essential, a lot of people who have this honour would never have made it. What one needs more than anything else is persistence, persistence and more persistence..The prime quality of a successful PhD student is diligence not intelligence and penetrating into such a meticulous programme is a very important decision because one will have to invest a prolonged time in chasing this dream.

A PhD thesis is something realistic to achieve. It doesn’t have to win the Nobel Prize or to solve the mysteries of the universe. It can be excellent but will never be perfect. There are lots of traps that can turn one out from a normal functioning procrastinator to being a paralyzed one. One should not anticipate that his supervisor will be around to help him out, nor should he suppose that his every experiment would work because he must bear in mind that nature does not tell the secret easily. Remember just dreaming something big is not enough. You have to struggle to succeed, struggle to deal with all adverse situations that may come your way while beating your dreams. You have to defeat the fears around you. That’s it. And yes that’s it. I wish all PhD students be lucky enough to have supervisors who not only supervise their thesis but also orchestrate a funding for them and provide them with a career advice.