Entering to study for a PhD or a Master’s is the beginning of a highly significant period in the life of a student. A PhD or doctorate involves making a contribution to knowledge and can also result in significant changes in the way the student thinks about the world. A doctorate takes a minimum of three years or sometimes a maximum of ten years to complete, but a lot can go wrong during the student’s study period. Here are a list of the problems and how to overcome them.
• Identifying a good research topic: As this is vital to a good PhD it can pose quite a challenge to the student. By going through your literature review, the matter of originality can be resolved.
• Loss of Motivation: To avoid this, you must know exactly why you want to do a PhD and select a topic, institution and supervisor that you know will excite you for the long run.
• Experiments That Don’t Work: All scientists know the frustration that can arise when an experiment doesn’t work. As a research student if this happens to you, seek help from fellow students, from your supervisor, from other researchers in the department and also from scientists working at other Universities and research laboratories.
• Problems with Data-Collection : Sometimes research students(especially social scientists) face problems collecting their data. This can be due to difficulties in recruiting respondents and sometimes getting responses that will not allow students to address their research questions in the way they had expected. If the responses are not what was expected, there may be an opportunity to revise the theory or model being tested and this may result in a better thesis.
• Isolation: The further a student gets into their PhD, the more likely they may begin to experience isolation, a consequence of studying something completely original. Joining student societies and trying to maintain a life outside university are two ways of combating this. If there’s no doctoral student society in place, you could try to organise one.
• Running out of Money: All research students’ nightmare…limited finances. This can make it hard for the student to make ends meet throughout their studies. If you must suspend your study midway, then keep in touch with both your research project and your supervisor during the period of suspension. Maintaining links improves the chances of eventual completion, considerably.
• Problems with a Supervisor: Problems with a research degree supervisor can arise from overwork, personality clashes, a change of topic, etc. Whatever the reason, it is important that you discuss the situation openly with your supervisor. If this is impossible, go to the coordinator and sort things out: it is important that a student be accorded a good supervision. A cordial learning environment is paramount to forging ahead.
• Someone else publishing your original ideas before you do: The chances of someone else reproducing independently your programme of work rarely happens, so you may not want to worry about this. But if it does happen, rearrange your thesis so that it focuses on a different aspect of the research. Think about drawing on a different aspect of the literature review or do some additional empirical work to move the idea on. Doing this may well save the doctorate you have put so much work into.
• Family and work concerns: Begin with discussing your busy schedule with your research degree supervisor in order that you both work out a functional time-table that will benefit each other.
Margaret E.
