Week in review: 22-28 February

This week saw me move my desk space into an isolated, unoccupied optics lab.  I had decided to relocate so that I could focus, uninterrupted, on reading, thinking and writing.  And I am pleased to report, it's working.  I am extremely happy with the progress I've made in reviewing textbooks and straightening out my understanding of background concepts.  As an experimentalist, even one who develops new techniques, I've found it extremely easy to get tunnel vision on aspects of my work.  After three years I have significant results to show, it's meaningful and contributes to my fields of study, however, I struggle to narrate (at a technical level) the link between my research and first principles.  For me I want to be proud of my thesis not only because of the lab work, but also because it's a starting point for future students.  Now I don't expect my thesis (specifically the introductory chapters) to repeat, repackage or regurgitate all the information found in numerous textbooks, but I do want there to be a continuous string from basic concepts to why I did what I did.  Maybe this sounds like what all theses do (or at least should); I guess I am just declaring my intentions, which explains why I am spending most of my time with my nose in books.

I am pleased to have started writing my thesis (there's still over 150 days to go), I am motivated to be reviewing concepts and working through examples/exercises, and I am happy with my progress this week.

Just as a side note, and maybe to explain in another way how focused I am on my reading... The lab I occupy is also the new home to our lab's 3d printer.  Yup, we picked one up earlier this week and get this, I haven't printed any parts.  Now anyone who knows me has got to see what a sign this is that I am committed to my thesis preparation.

Another day in the cave

Again I spent most of today isolated in my side room reading and working on my thesis.  Primarily I was reviewing material in textbooks and working through problems, but as I went I made notes in my thesis draft and wrote small snippets.

I did shun my anti social behavior long enough for a group meeting around midday, but afterwards I was back at my desk.

More of the same

I spent this morning in our school's cleanroom facility, learning how to use a new type of analytical instrument.  Then in the afternoon I focused on reading and adding notes to my thesis draft.

Mental workout

Today I was able to spend my entire day alone in my hideaway, reading and writing.  A change of location has helped remove distractions and I am very pleased with my progress.  I need a few weeks worth of days like today, but now that I've found a winning strategy, it's up to me to supply the effort.

Moving day

The seemingly "big" news of the day is that I've uprooted by desk and moved away to a isolated room adjacent our lab.  After three years at my desk in the middle of the lab, I've sequestered myself in a side lab (our optics room) to focus on my reading and writing.  At my old desk I was right next to the door, printer and telephone which provided far too many distractions.  Now I understand a new location does do my work for me, but I am hopefully the isolation will allow my to work for periods uninterrupted.  At the very least, it forced me to organise my papers and books.

This morning I spent time with one of our visiting students, training him to run an instrument that he'll use for his project (which I am helping to supervise).  Also I picked up a parcel that contained the last of the raw material for my latest project at the workshop.  I past along the parts to the shop and had a chat about their progress.  Things are looking good and I am optimistic I'll have most if not all of my hardware when I leave Wellington.  In the afternoon, I attended a workshop related to an award programme I am completing in tandem with my degree.

False start

Even after resting over the weekend, I stayed home this morning to shake off my cold.  It would have been a short day as I volunteered Monday afternoons.  I did attend my volunteer shift as this was my last one; I've stepped back from my commitment as I am headed overseas for a long period and want to focus the next few months on my thesis.

Week in advance: 22-28 February

After a particularly tough week and some recovery this weekend, I am ready to bounce back at work.  Actually the blog has been quite helpful to voice my concerns and forced me to reconcile these issues.  Having identified (some of) my worries I can troubleshoot the problems and adjust accordingly.  And hopefully I'll be a better student/research as a result.

I've come to realise that it's not my work I lack confidence in, it's actually my background knowledge I worry is insufficient.  To date there have been no issues, but sitting at the confluence of 3 or more large fields, writing a thesis with clear and thoughtful introductory chapters is rather stressful.  Lately I've been trying to write bits of my thesis, thinking the problem was the daunting task of compiling three and a half years of research in a single written document.  However, I think that only brought my real worry to the forefront.  This week I plan to spend significant time reading and writing (even if only notes) as I go along.  I look forward to not only presenting my work (which I am proud of), but also a thoughtful review of the concepts that form the foundation of my work.  Knowing is one thing, but teaching is significantly harder.

Tomorrow I volunteer in the afternoon, but this will be my last shift for now.  As I plan to focus solely on my school work over the next 5 months.  Tuesday and Wednesday I have training to do with a visiting student, but again this is an opportunity to teach which will help sharpen my understanding of my work.

Week in review: 15-21 February

It's been quite a week and not for any "good" reasons.  I've had a particularly difficult time over the past few days to stay on top of my work, remain motivated and keep myself physically and mentally health.  Now as always I don't mention this for any amount of sympathy, but to let the odd student who may stumble across my posts that these feelings are quite normal for a PhD student (or at least I've convinced myself they are).

At first glance, a PhD is much like a job.  There's an office, desk and computer; there's a supervisor and colleagues; a tearoom (lunch room to those from North America).  But a key difference between a PhD and a typical work experience is that you (as the student) are motivating your work.  That seems slightly mad, like letting a 6 year old choose their diet and clothes (and we can all imagine how that would turn out).  In pursuit of a doctoral degree we soak up knowledge (mostly self taught), synthesis this information and carry out our own research.  After studying and working for 3 years straight you know you should be building towards a great finish, a culmination of your efforts, a masterpiece worthy of praise, but then you remember that you came up with all your "bright" ideas and suddenly you wonder if your contributions have any value.  This is the crisis that stuck me this week and let me say it's a force powerful enough to take the wind from your sails.  How exactly am I suppose to continue in the lab if I question the very foundation of my work?

Sadly I feel there is nothing on offer that can remove these feelings.  It's the burden of a student.  However, I've found that with proper supervisor, regardless if you know it or not, you have been gently kept on a safe path.  Also, while it's important not to become to proud or self absorbed with your past, a look back over the past couple years can be very enlightening... was your abstract accepted for a talk at a conference, did you have a paper accepted by a journal, do others seek you out for collaboration, and the list goes on.  Whatever you've accomplished over the tenure of your studies, these suggest your work is meaningful and not in vane.

Practically thoughts of doubt can not only shatter your confidence, but they disrupt your entire workflow.  "How can I concentrate on reading this article when my work is garbage?"  "Why am I having the workshop build another piece of hardware, when my plans are rubbish?"  And the list goes on.  Unfortunately, I have to admit that this week I was shattered by a lack of confidence.  In hind sight, what little progress I did make was due to planning beforehand.  As I've mentioned in numerous previous posts, make lists.  Prioritise your work.  Know what you're doing so that when everything falls apart you just have to follow your own instructions.

Unfortunately progress was minimal this week, but I've learned a lot about myself and the struggles of a PhD.  In a way I am happy to have these problems now and learn from them so that when it really comes to crunch time (as my deadline approaches), I'll be that much more prepared.

Things are brewing

Today there were a number of exciting conversations, particularly about upcoming projects.  First off, our lab just welcomed two visiting students from the Netherlands who are here for a 3 month internship.  One of the students will be working with me on an aspect of my PhD research.  This morning my supervisor sat down with the student to run through the project goals and motivations.  We've outlined a really cool experience and it seems like the student is looking forward to the work.

Later in the day, just after lunch, my supervisor and I had a Skype session with a professor in Christchurch (University of Canterbury).  One of his students (actually from his old position at Cambridge) will visit our lab next month to run experiments.  We had a discussion about what equipment they'd like to use and what we need to do to prepare.  In the end, we decided that I would send a couple prints for the machine shop at UC.  This is neat for two reasons; first typically my prints stay in house where I can talk through the design with our workshop, so this will be an new experience.  Second, these folks are looking to visit our lab because of the hardware we have available (which was created as part of my thesis).  It's awesome that others see the value in our work and want to collaborate.  At the end of the day I modeled the new parts and worked up prints that I sent on.

Also today I kept up with my reading and even found a couple new books in the library.  I've started in on one of these new resources and it looks like a great read.

Sick day

Today I wasn't feeling well and didn't make it out of the house.  With some rest at home today, I hope to get back to work tomorrow.

Pastoral care

So today's post title comes directly from my supervisor.  No he's not becoming a contributor to the blog, but this was his description of a talk we had this afternoon.  I am 6 months away from submitting my thesis and I have moments where I seriously question the value of my work.  I won't call this interaction with my supervisor a "pep talk," because that's not what I was looking for, it was more of a "logic and reality talk".  It's his opinion that all (most?) students have similar feelings and that these feelings arise in particular when the thesis is in an early stage.  Following one of my prime reasons for writing this blog (i.e. helping other students), I want to make very clear that it's normal (and typical) to question your work.  Now I suppose there's always a chance that these feelings are warranted and in these cases it's important to take inventory of research, in particular why you did what you have done and what do you take from your work.  With proper supervision, I would be very surprised if 6 months before submitting your thesis, you realise there was no rational reason for your work or that after a few years you have absolutely no results to discuss (remember even a null result is a result!).  Speaking with my supervisor didn't make my apprehension go away entirely, but it was extremely help to talk about my concerns.

Before having the aforementioned crisis of confidence, I was able to write uninterrupted for two hours and drafted a couple sections for my thesis.  For the rest of the day I worked in the lab setting up for future experiments and took a couple trips to the mechanical workshop to troubleshoot some issues with the hardware that will go overseas with me in April.

Bits

Today I worked on small jobs, including updating my thesis references (this was my writing task for the day), searching literature, reading, and trying to get a parcel through customs.  While all these tasks needed to be done, my schedule was a little erratic.  I didn't block off specific hours for either writing or reading and as a result I drifted between jobs.

A place to start

During my morning at work I focused on outlining my thesis.  Not only does this exercise help my thesis take form, but gets me thinking about all the background literature I need to pull together and all the experiments I have run or need to run.

Week in advance: 15-21 February

... and a few words from last week's conference.

Before jumping into my plans for this week, I had just a couple thoughts from my conference last week in sunny Nelson (although I spent most of the week in conference rooms).  First off I gave a talk and while I have a number of personal rules for how to prepare a conference presentation I have decided not to go into detail.  The strategy I use to layout slides and time my speaking may not work for others and rather than claim to have perfected the art of conference speaking, I'll leave it to the reader to form an approach that works for them.  However, I will say that practicing your talk is an absolute must.  There is no leeway here, it is essential that you rehearse your presentation well in advance.  And remember this takes time... a 15 minute time slot (about a 12 minute talk leaving room for questions) will take over an hour just for 4-5 dry runs.  Be prepared to commit serious blocks of time to practicing.  Personally I memorise my entire presentation.  I am of the mind that a presenter needs to know what their next slide says, before they click to it; it's easy to waste a minute plus if you have to "review" the contents of each slide as it goes up, not to mention how disjointed your talk becomes.  Practice.  It's not an option.

Another quick thought from the conference, and this is really just to throw it out there, I typically walk away from a day's worth of talks with my head spinning.  While I enjoy hearing about other research, most talks go over my head.  As a PhD student you are an extremely early career researcher and you focus much of your energy into one or two topics.  With that background, you can expect to keep up with every talk at a conference (at least I don't think so).  Try to take as much from the sessions as possible, but don't feel as if you are the only one not following the speaker's talk.

Now moving on to this week...

I plan to keep up my two hour a day writing strategy, this seems to have worked in weeks past.  Additionally, this week I plan to sequester myself in the library (or similar isolated zone) to spent some serious time reading.  Ideally the reading, processing and writing will become a closed loop where one leads into the next.  Finally each day I'll spend time in the lab working on experiments, coding and design (ultimately just keeping projects moving forward); the key here will be prioritising my work so that this time does eat into my reading/writing sessions.

Week in advance: 8-14 February

This week I am in Nelson to attend the AMN-7 conference.  I will be giving a talk at the end of the week and in the meantime there are a number of folks I wish to catch-up with and numerous talks to take in.  Being on the road and away from school (and my "regular" routine) I do not plan to make regular posts.  I will return at the end of the week with comments from my experience.

Week in review: 1-7 February

With a public holiday and half day on Monday, this past week went by rather quickly.  I was able to submit my prints to the machine shop and sort out materials/follow questions.  The rest of my time was dedicated to analysing data, writing software for said analysis and placing the results in slides for a conference next week.

I was able to start a dedicated writing time and I followed through each morning.  It only took two days before my supervisor was apologising for interrupting me during this time.  My other hope this week was to review a paper a day in preparation of adding references to my thesis, however, I didn't follow through with this plan.

Even though I have a few jobs queued up in the lab, I spent most (all) of my time this week at the computer somewhere between a Python script, my thesis, a grant proposal and a slide presentation.  I would assume this will become more of the trend as I move full swing into my thesis preparation.  However, there still are experiments to run in the lab and I'll need to carefully plan my time and prioritise to make sure I am working on the most crucial job.

Pass

Today was a public holiday and with the university closed, I decided to take the day off.  No work, papers or writing, just some time away.

Stuff

Today  continued on with my programming library for data analysis.  It's a fantastic exercise as I've never before built such a complex module.  For processing experiments I've typically written self contained scripts that evolve with my methods.  In this case I'll have a single collection of code snippets to keep up to date (or add to) which will work over the next 6 months much more efficient.  At the end of the day, I spent a little bit of time with my thesis, adding to the outline/structure just to get my head in the right place and to start thinking about what work goes where.  It's a get exercise to take inventory of what has happened to date and what still needs to be done over the next few months.

Much less drama

Today was significant less dramatic than yesterday.  In particular it was mainly just working at my desk, continuing to put together my presentation for next week's conference.  My slides are close to being finished and I quickly ran my supervisor through the structure.  Now I just need to analyse some data sets I would like to include.  

In looking at my various scripts and programmes for processing data and visualising results, I realised it was time to create a single master library.  I know other students that I've worked with have made similar efforts, but as I have new types of experiments, nothing preexisting fits my needs.  Also, I like to know exactly how (nuts and bolts) I am treating my data so I don't mind investing time into developing my own set of functions (although most already exist individually in my array of different programmes).

A challenge

Today was a tough day, maybe even the most stressful in recent days.  The positive is that by the end of the day, I was back at the point where I started the day.  No progress and I lost 8 hours, but at least I didn't go backwards.  In short, my take away message is when things start to go to pot, keep a calm head and keep moving forwards.  One of my personal favorite sayings at home is "there's no problem that can't be solve."  Given my penchant for puzzles and troubleshooting, I guess this shouldn't come as a surprise, but it's a key strategy when studying.  When things go wrong or when others say something can't be done, do not give up (don't blindly try to keep moving forward either); take a moment and then dive into the issue head-first.

Not bad

Today was my first day trying out my new strategy of uninterrupted writing.  And for the most part it will very well.  I made sure to close all of my email tabs in my browser and I wore headphones to help "excuse" myself from the lab atmosphere.  For the most my biggest challenge will be training my colleagues to leave me alone.  Also, I need to figure out how to move the telephone away from my desk so I am not the default answering service.  Today I worked on slides for next conference and, working from existing material, I was able to knock out a good portion of the talk.  I have a couple figure/plots to make tomorrow, but otherwise I'll be done.  Outside of my writing time, I delivered my stack of prints to the machine shop, so this work is now underway.  At least the material will be ordered and the work will be added to the queue, but at least this has moved off of my desk in a timely fashion.  After lunch I had a final look with my supervisor at the final draft of a grant application before I headed off to volunteer.  Not too shabby for essentially a half day at school.

Week in advance: 1-7 February

Following up from my comments yesterday, my plan for this week is to work from a to do list AND set time aside each day for necessary work.  With regards to the former, I need to prepare a presentation for a conference I am speaking at next week.  Additionally, I have some work I'd like to do in the lab with one of my instruments (circuit work and programming work).  In addition to these jobs, I plan to set aside a minimum of 2 hours each day to write.  Now seeing as this is my first week and there are plenty of "writing" options (presentation slides, manuscripts, thesis) I won't prescribe the time to any specific project, but I will set a block of my day specifically to write uninterrupted.  Also, I would like to start a habit of reviewing journal articles.  I have a stack of literature from the past three years and no I need to get all these references into my thesis.  To do so, I'll be setting one hour aside each day just for reading and note taking.  Now there's a good chance I'll come across bodies of work that need more than an hour of my attention and in these cases, I'll flag the article and add a further sit down to my to do list.

Pioneering these new habits this week will be a bit tricky as Monday is a half day and Friday is a public holiday.  Regardless, I've laid out my goals and I'll do my best to see them through.  Progress reports to come (as always).

Week in review: 25-31 January

I can't complain with my progress this week.  I did everything I laid out at the start of the week and have momentum to carry me over into a new month.  However, taking this chance to be a bit critical, I need to point out that my work has become extremely fragmented and incremental.  While I think it's important to take small bites one at a time out a big project like a PhD thesis, falling into a checklist habit isn't health.  I say this because working one job at a time hides the bigger picture.  Sure I can be happy to finish a couple items on my to do list, but if I am not pacing myself according to the full project I am going to run into trouble.  Also individual jobs come and go and it's difficult to use them to set mid term goals.  For example, writing an entire thesis or even a journal article is a big job, but I can make progress towards completion by saying I'll write for two hours each day.  While I never check off a "complete" task, I am moving towards a milestone.  This week I just wanted to finish a few jobs stuck on my desk and in doing so I focused mainly on these items and made no contribution to my mountain of writing assignments.  I can't expect to finish everything and THEN write; as if writing is just another entry on a punch list.

Also this week how I finished my work was unstructured.  In the mind set of knocking out a couple jobs, I wasn't forced to plan out my week or days.  Time is precious and before I start working late or going into the lab on the weekend, I need to make sure I properly use my regular workday.