This book is about some of the problems I've had as a PhD student and how I resolved them. I believe that it would help other PhD students cope with their problems. This is the reference book that I wish someone had written before I started my PhD. It would have made my life so much easier.
Advice to a Troubled PhD Student is about the way I experienced my PhD. It tells my personal story. If that can be useful to you then you will gain from it. If not, you will have to work out your own strategies for coping with the PhD.
However, if you are looking for a step-by-step how-to-do-it book, this one isn't for you. It doesn't give detailed instructions on what to do when things go bad, it just offers ideas, based on my own experience, that might help you.
Excerpt:
This is the book that I wish that someone had written before I started my PhD. It would have made my journey much less stressful and worrisome.
The book is about the way I experienced my PhD. It tells my personal story. If that can be useful to you then you will gain from it. If not, you will have to work out your own strategies for coping with the PhD.
However, if you are looking for a step-by-step how-to-do-it book, this one isn’t for you. It doesn’t give detailed instructions on what to do when things go bad, it just offers ideas, based on my own experience, that might help you.
I hope that you can take my ideas and develop your own personal way of doing your PhD. I hope that this book will help you in that development. That is why I wrote it.
This book consists of a number of chapters dealing with various topics of interest, and I hope of use, to PhD students. As each chapter is separate from the others you can use it in different ways.
First, you might like to read it all the way through to see what’s available and what each chapter offers.
Then, you can refer back to the book and read the relevant chapter any time you feel the need for that information.
It is my hope that you will refer back to the book often. It’s not that I hope that you have lots of problems about which you need advice, but rather that you will use the book as a guide or comfort when things get you down or aren’t going well. More than anything, I hope that the book will show you that you are not alone. I think that I can say without fear of contradiction that every PhD student has worries, suffers depression and feels like giving up at some time during their candidacy. I hope that, in those times, this book will help you to get over it, get back to work and, most importantly, finish your PhD.
I cover a lot of area in this book, from what to do about your depression to dealing with your supervisor to some of the problems in getting published and personal relationships. Most are meant seriously to help you, but at least one is meant to be humorous. Perhaps the humour will help you as much as the serious stuff. It all depends on you and how you are feeling at any particular time.
