PhD curious? Everything you wanted to know (with Dr Michael English)

[00:00:00] Bronwyn: Hello, mental workers. You're listening to the Mental Work Podcast, your companion to early career psychology. As always, I'm your host, Dr. Bronwyn Milkins, and today we are talking about PhDs, Doctor of Philosophy. The degree. In this episode, it's going to be for the PhD curious, the people who have heard of a PhD or maybe you've never heard of a PhD and you're interested in what it is, what it's all about, is it worth it, and here to help us is my dear partner, Dr. Michael English.

[00:00:40] Michael: Hello everyone.

[00:00:41] Bronwyn: Hi, Michael. Michael also edits the podcast, so he makes everyone sound even more fabulous. Michael, could you please introduce yourself to listeners?

[00:00:50] Michael: Sure, it's a bit strange being on this side of the microphone, but I'm sure I'll get used to it. So I did a PhD at the University of Western Australia, finishing in 2017. I hung around for about six years as a postdoctoral research associate, doing some additional research, but also supervising PhD students as well.

[00:01:12] Bronwyn: So, what was your PhD on? Can you give us the elevator pitch?

[00:01:15] Michael: Well the very short answer to four years worth of research was, I, no, I don't think I can. I just like blank, just like, oh my gosh, there's so much stuff, where do I begin? But I was looking at autism, autistic traits, and how autistic people see the world differently to everyone else.

[00:01:36] Bronwyn: Amazing. Michael had a really cool PhD, and we actually met while we were studying our PhDs. So, the doctor in my name also refers to PhD, and I did a PhD at the University of Western Australia, starting in 2013, restarting in about mid 2014 and then finishing up in 2021.

[00:01:56] So I really like that Michael is coming on this episode to explore with us because we had very different PhD experiences. So I think it provides a good breadth of experience, but also Michael's got the additional experience of being a postdoctoral researcher and supervising PhDs, whereas I have the experience of being a psychologist delivering therapy.

[00:02:18] In line with being a PhD er slash researcher, Michael has meticulously prepared some dot points for us to go through. Did you want to start us off then?

[00:02:28] Michael: Sure. Well, I guess like the first thing we should address is what is a PhD, right?

[00:02:34] Bronwyn: I think so. So, I've already mentioned that a PhD means Doctor of Philosophy and I've got a fun fact here, which is your fun fact, but I'm going to read it out to you,

[00:02:44] Michael: Take it away.

[00:02:45] Bronwyn: ...is that doctor is Latin for "to teach". So, doctor of philosophy can be interpreted as teacher of knowledge. So, when we think about the original doctors, PhDs, doctor of philosophies is the original doctor and then medical doctors have borrowed the term doctor to refer to medicine.

[00:03:06] Michael: Yeah. So I was doing some reading on Wikipedia about doctors and the history of the term doctor and basically once upon a time, like you had to be a doctor in order to be a teacher of any kind so it was held in a very high regard back in the day.

[00:03:21] Bronwyn: And I think it's still held in high regard. Like if we look globally, only 1 percent of people or less have a PhD, right?

[00:03:28] Michael: It's... I'm sure it's way less than 1%.

[00:03:31] Bronwyn: that sounded too much, where did I get the 1 percent from?

[00:03:34] Michael: I don't know, but I'd say like maybe 1 percent of our undergraduate cohort has done a PhD.

[00:03:39] Bronwyn: Ah, okay, sure. So when we think about a PhD anyway, it is the highest degree that one can obtain from a university. Some people, they want to undertake PhDs because they want to reach that next level of education and the reason why a PhD confers that amount of prestige is because you have to conduct research on a novel area and you have to contribute something new to the existing research literature, which might sound simple, but it's actually quite difficult to carve out an area or address a gap in research, right?

[00:04:10] Michael: Yeah, it's not for everyone. I think you have to be quite passionate about it because it takes so long to get through the process of like completing a PhD. Most universities would say it takes about four years to complete, but based on my own experience and some analysis out of the Department of Education, Maybe only like 20 percent of people have actually finished at the four year mark, so it's quite an arduous process.

[00:04:36] Bronwyn: Some people who are PhD curious, they read the university website and it says three to four years.

[00:04:42] Michael: It's very optimistic, I think.

[00:04:43] Bronwyn: Yeah, and they don't know the statistics around this, so can you tell us a bit more about these stats?

[00:04:50] Michael: Yeah, so I'd say that the stats on the university websites are probably a best case scenario.

[00:04:56] A lot of people who do PhDs get a scholarship that goes along with that and that scholarship will only go for three to three and a half years so the universities really want you to finish up in that time frame but the thing is that with any task that you are undertaking that goes for several years, life is going to get in the way.

[00:05:16] There will be changes and disruptions. That's pretty much a guaranteed thing for everyone and that best case scenario quickly blows out by one year, two years. If you switch to studying part time, then things are going to take longer as well. Some of the statistics say that by the four year mark, 20 percent of people have dropped out of their PhDs. Um, about 20 percent have finished, but the vast majority of people are still studying their PhDs at the four year mark.

[00:05:47] And it shouldn't be too surprising in the field of psychology because there's a lot of people that are completing their master's degrees at the same time. And some of you might be thinking, hang on a minute, master's, PhD, how can you be doing both of them at the same time? And we should mention that we are talking about PhDs in an Australian context here.

[00:06:08] Bronwyn: So it's a bit of an Australian anomaly that you don't have to have a master's before you do a PhD, specifically in psychology, because in psychology the master's leads to professional practice, whereas the PhD is a research pathway.

[00:06:23] Michael: Yeah, so most people coming into their masters or PhDs will probably have done a fourth year honours degree beforehand. Internationally, this honours degree is often referred to as the masters degree. So I don't know why Australia is a little bit different in that regard. Um, but yeah, Bronwyn is correct. Like you can do your masters on itself. You could do the PhD by itself, or you can double down and do both at the same time, essentially doing a double degree.

[00:06:51] Bronwyn: and we both did our honors and then we did PhD straight after. Yeah, and so Michael, do you know on average how long it takes PhD students in Australia to complete their PhD?

[00:07:03] Michael: I think five years is a safe estimate.

[00:07:07] Bronwyn: Yeah, and so how long did it take you to do your PhD?

[00:07:11] Michael: I was a goody two shoes and I finished mine in like four and a half. So I had a, I had a short extension, but I was definitely well within like university acceptable completion times.

[00:07:23] Bronwyn: Yeah, very good. Yes, that's a very good PhD length. Whereas for me, it took me about eight years, and I restarted my project after the first year, so I reapplied for my PhD, recognizing that the first project I undertook just wasn't viable, and then after about a year and a half, I changed projects, which is very rare to do. But I did.

[00:07:47] Michael: Hooray! Hooray! So, I think a good next question should be like, okay, a PhD takes a long time, but what is going on during all those years of study? Like what do you, what does a PhD student actually do?

[00:08:03] Bronwyn: because I feel like you see PhD on books and you're like, Oh, this is a smart person, but you, the average person in the population would have no idea what the culmination of a PhD is. Right?

[00:08:14] Michael: Exactly. I think the average person would have no idea like what it takes to get a PhD and just the sorts of things that a PhD student would be undertaking to get said PhD.

[00:08:25] Bronwyn: Okay. So let's walk listeners through that. I'm just going to start at the end though. So the end culmination of a PhD is about a 70 to 80, 000 word document.

[00:08:38] Michael: Yep, it's quite thick.

[00:08:40] Bronwyn: It's pretty thick and inside that document is about three to four studies, so research studies and that is in a PhD in experimental psychology, I guess. You may do a PhD which uses qualitative methods and so you might have a bit of a different layout for your PhD. Or you might do a PhD where you focus on doing an extensive systematic review and that might take up the bulk of your PhD and then you do one study after that. So there's different formats that you can do, but all in all a PhD in psychology is usually the, an equivalent amount of work to each other.

[00:09:23] Michael: So yeah, everyone's PhD is going to look very different. There's multiple ways to get to the end of it. But I'd say for people who've done an honours degree, that it's about three to four honours theses worth of work. So I think most people do about three experimental studies. Um, there would be, uh, a literature review of some sorts and then a final chapter, which is a synthesis of everything that has come before that and, trying to fit it into the, the rest of the, the literature as well.

[00:09:53] Bronwyn: Okay, when we think about the tasks involved, many people might not realize that , it is an independent research degree. So, in Honours, you've got your Honours Supervisor more or less holding your hand if they're a good Honours Supervisor and they are giving you appropriate work to do.

[00:10:10] In PhD land, you are still a student, you don't have to know everything, but you really need to be on board with thinking analytically in proposing studies, in working together to come up with study designs, in writing and giving that writing to your supervisors. You are recruiting participants, you are often developing the materials, you might be designing your own experiments or writing the code for your own studies. Then you are collecting the data, analysing the data, delivering that to your supervisors who will give you feedback and then going through your supervisors with the implications, but already having thought about some of those implications yourself.

[00:10:52] Michael: Yep, that's, it's quite a lot of stuff and the reason for that is because one of the goals of the PhD is that someone who's finished their PhD should be able to work as a independent researcher by the end of that. So they'll have supervisors that are pointing them in the right direction along the way, but the the end goal is that you should be relatively confident that you can do your own independent research once you've finished your PhD.

[00:11:19] Bronwyn: Yep. And I think like a PhD, having completed it, I do feel able to do that. So I feel like it's achieved its objective, at least for me, and I'm sure you felt the same way, right?

[00:11:31] Michael: I don't know if I would have called myself like an independent researcher with a capital I at the end of it, but I definitely felt a lot more confident at the end than at the beginning. But as with all things, it's a continuous journey and I'm still learning things every day.

[00:11:45] Bronwyn: Yeah, and I think one of the other maybe things that we need to address is that the reason it can take so long is because not only life things come up, but unexpected things might happen with your research. So for example, and I can't remember if this happened to you, I don't think it happened to me, but I think it happened during my honours, but you may lose some data. Did you ever lose any data?

[00:12:07] Michael: I never lost data for my own projects, but I was responsible for one of my honours students not collecting the data they thought they were collecting, which is a horrible thing to experience. And, that honour student did very well in the end anyway, so it was a happy ending, but like, that's a good example of one of the things that can go wrong.

[00:12:28] Bronwyn: so you may lose data, you may not collect data, thinking you are collecting the data. If you need access to specialised equipment, like if say you were doing studies that required the use of fMRI machines, that might require a hospital to be able to give you permission to use that equipment and then you may not get that permission for six to nine months.

[00:12:49] Michael: Yeah, there can be lots of delays to do without using big equipment like that, but even just like getting ethical approval to, to run your studies, like, uh, depending on what you're doing, it could be quite a wait in order to get the ethical approval to even start the data collection.

[00:13:04] Bronwyn: Yeah, so I was doing some research last year, and the back and forth with ethics took about three months, and that, that might be on the short end, depending on your research. If you have more complicated research designs that require more ethical considerations, it could even be six months.

[00:13:21] Michael: Yeah, so research is a very, very messy process, and I think another aspect that can make it a little bit messy is that a PhD is a collaboration with your supervisors, so there are other people involved in your PhD, and they are people too, so life happens to them. I know many PhD students who would have started their PhD with two supervisors, and then one of them might retire halfway through, so they have to get another supervisor to replace them and they might have their own thoughts on the direction of the research projects. You might have supervisors who just aren't that interested in your PhD projects and therefore don't give you as much time as you need or advice in a timely manner or feedback on your papers in a timely manner.

[00:14:13] So all of those things can like add up to delays in your project as well.

[00:14:17] Bronwyn: Yeah. So we're making it sound pretty bad. I guess it's just to be realistic because some people they, who are PhD curious, they think, Oh, great. I'll go into this thing. And in three years time, I'll have the doctor in front of my name and it will be a breeze. And how cool is this?

[00:14:33] Michael: There's good reasons why not everyone has a PhD and like I said, like even if those people that are accepted to complete a PhD, at least 20 percent of those will back out at some point. Many of those will, you know, maybe come back 10 years later to have another stab at it. Um, but a lot of people do find it's quite the arduous task to, to get to the end of it and, understandably, decide to not complete it.

[00:15:01] Bronwyn: often, I think of a PhD as. It's part intellectual challenge, but part test of perseverance. I do feel like when it comes to the nitty gritty writing your thesis, for me, it was a huge test of perseverance.

[00:15:15] Michael: Did you ever think of dropping out of your PhD?

[00:15:17] Bronwyn: Absolutely. Heaps of times I literally print, and you know this, but you listeners don't, but I printed out a piece of paper with all PhD and I would have that stuck in front of me next to my computer screen, because some days it was every day that I was thinking I could drop out of this PhD. And one of my top reasons for not dropping out of my PhD was that I couldn't be bothered explaining it to everyone if they brought it up. And they were like, why aren't you doing that PhD? And then I'd have to be like, oh, it didn't work out.

[00:15:51] So I would rather finish a PhD than have to go through the mental load of explaining why I didn't finish a PhD to people. Everyone has their motivations, right?

[00:16:02] Michael: Everyone does. And I think that leads us on to our next section that we've got here, which is, well, why would you want to get a PhD? I don't think we've painted like a very pretty picture of completing a PhD.

[00:16:13] Bronwyn: Yeah, let's bring the listeners back up. I feel like we've brought them down. Let's give them some hope.

[00:16:17] Michael: Yep, there are positives, and there's plenty of positives, and if there weren't positives I don't think either of us would have finished our PhDs.

[00:16:23] Bronwyn: Absolutely. One reason that you would want to get a PhD is if you have an interest in a specific area of psychology and you want to explore it further. So in your travels, along your studies, you've recognized that there's a major gap in an area and you're thinking to yourself, someone should do something about that. Someone should investigate that. Maybe I could be the person to investigate that. And you really want to explore it in a rigorous way.

[00:16:47] Michael: And it could just be like, oh, I wonder if anyone has looked at this particular thing in this particular way, and if no one has then maybe you could be that person to answer your own questions.

[00:17:00] Bronwyn: Yeah. So the benefit of doing a PhD is that you get to become quite expert in an area that you're interested in.

[00:17:08] Michael: For those of you practicing psychology, there could be a specific area of psychology that you want to specialise in and develop credentials in as an expert or leader in that area. So Bronwyn, I understand that you did your PhD in the field of sleep.

[00:17:25] Bronwyn: Yes.

[00:17:26] Michael: Would you say that has ever been useful in your clinical practice?

[00:17:30] Bronwyn: Well, absolutely, because a lot of people come to therapy with sleep problems, but the thing is, is that psychologists don't routinely get training in how to manage sleep. So having examined insomnia specifically in my PhD, I now get people referred to me who have sleep problems and then I can bring that expertise to assisting them.

[00:17:52] And because I also examined how to best treat insomnia, I feel like as a clinician, I've got some additional skills to be able to give clients greater outcomes than say other psychologists who haven't read all the literature that I have and done like a 10, 000 word literature review and several studies on the subject.

[00:18:12] Michael: So outcomes are always like one of the most important things of working as a psychologist. So I'd imagine that having studied sleep and insomnia during your PhD, it's probably helped you achieve better outcomes with your clients or faster outcomes.

[00:18:26] Bronwyn: Well, that's a, it's a hard thing to know because as you know, one of the things we're doing at PhD is that we like to make sure our claims are backed up with data. So I don't have any data on that, but I would think that maybe compared to someone who has zero knowledge in the area, that I would be a little bit more informed about how to assist people with sleep.

[00:18:45] Michael: I'm sure it's way more than a little bit more than zero.

[00:18:47] Bronwyn: I just want to be cautious. It's been really good to be able to have that knowledge in sleep because I find that it permeates a lot through mental health conditions. And just one of the biggest things that I learned about sleep throughout my PhD is that if you have poor sleep or a lack of quality sleep, it can causally contribute to the onset of depression and anxiety, which is, you know, our most high prevalent mental health conditions.

[00:19:12] So, it's a huge thing.

[00:19:14] Michael: Another reason that you might want to study a PhD is that you'd have a genuine interest in conducting research after you finish your degree, and this is something that probably characterises me. I applied for both a clinical masters in psychology and a PhD at the same time. I was accepted into the PhD program, but masters is a very competitive course and I was knocked back at the time and encouraged to apply again, but after doing one year of PhD and seeing my other peers doing the clinical master's I was quite happy to not be doing the Master's program as I was really enjoying the the research study that I was doing at the time so doing the PhD enabled me to continue working as a researcher after I finished my studies, and I've really enjoyed being able to Pay it forward to honours and new PhD students the lessons I've learned along the way and be involved in their research projects and Bronwyn, having a PhD has allowed you to do some research work at the same time as work as a private practitioner.

[00:20:22] Bronwyn: So, yeah, I think Michael raises some good points because Michael has a strength in mentoring other people in research and he's really passionate about research and I think, I think you do a great job in helping other people with their research skills because you're very patient and you're also very comprehensive, which I think is necessary for folks who are just starting out in research. And so you may just enjoy research, and answering questions and collecting data and analyzing results and communicating that. So that's a really good reason to do a PhD.

[00:20:56] For me as a psychologist, well, yeah, I think it's been really great to do the PhD because it gives me an alternative way to earn money. So it's an alternative career pathway if I so choose to do it, because I love research. I love doing research but with being a psychologist, very few of us do that full time. Very few of us actually see therapy clients Monday to Friday. Most of us find that we need some other form of income to break it up, or we just work part time.

[00:21:29] So for me, Having the option to do some research work, and last year I did work as a research assistant on a project that I was really passionate about, which was looking at intimate partner violence in the queer community. I found that that was a great way to break up my clinical work and I really enjoyed using a different set of skills.

[00:21:50] And I think just if you enjoy being in an academic environment, I actually do miss that about having finished my PhD. I do miss being part of the university environment and hanging around PhD peers because you get some really good intellectual conversations and you can go to research seminars and there's usually research training on all the time and you can have access to as much of that knowledge as you really want. And you get to talk with your supervisors who are usually very eminent experts in their fields and highly regarded. And I do miss having that.

[00:22:25] Michael: So doing the PhD definitely keeps a lot more doors open than you would have otherwise and I guess that one of the good things about having done a PhD is that it's a, you know, it's a lifelong degree. So you'll always have that PhD if you ever want to go back into the research work.

[00:22:42] Bronwyn: I think the next thing we want to go to is our personal stories. Is that right?

[00:22:46] Michael: Sure.

[00:22:47] Bronwyn: So I really, I'm laughing already because our experiences are quite contrasting, so we'll see how we go, but I think it's great. Okay. Michael, why did you choose to study a PhD?

[00:22:57] Michael: So after my undergraduate degree, I was doing some behavioral therapy with autistic children, and I found working with the kids to be like a really rewarding and fascinating experience because my understanding of autism up until that point had always been from a deficit focus and what I was seeing in the therapy was that these kids had some amazing strengths as well that I had just not been made aware of. The kids would teach me to draw something and it was amazing the spatial ability that some of these kids had like the most biologically accurate rabbits I have seen... Definitely not the cartoon rabbits that you'd expect like a six year old to be drawing... and memory ability that surpassed my own in many areas.

[00:23:44] So it's just got me thinking like, well, what else can autistic people do that's better than the rest of us? And I did some quick research and found some professors at our university that this was their area of expertise and I approached them to do some more study.

[00:24:01] Bronwyn: And quick questions around that. What was your honours grade?

[00:24:05] Michael: It was Upper second, class.

[00:24:08] Bronwyn: Okay. And how old were you when you started your PhD?

[00:24:11] Michael: 22 or 23.

[00:24:13] Bronwyn: And did you get a scholarship? And how much was that scholarship, if so?

[00:24:17] Michael: I was fortunate enough to get a scholarship. At the time, I was very blase about it. I thought that everyone got scholarships if they got into a PhD program, but now I know that's not the case at all. The scholarship in total was about $30,000 a year, which at the time as a poor uni student was like, "oh my gosh, this is so much money", I've never seen this much money before. I mean, they don't give it to you all at once. It's like a salary.

[00:24:39] Bronwyn: Yeah.

[00:24:40] Michael: Which is probably a good thing. But it helped, it helped a lot with like independent studies. I really feel for people who get into any kind of postgraduate study full time and they don't have a scholarship to support them.

[00:24:51] Bronwyn: Mm. Okay. And so just coming back to your honours grade, I think because for the PhD curious, they might be wondering, are my marks high enough and do I have to get really high marks? And so both of us had upper second class honours. So that means we got between 75 and 79. So I think I got 79 on the cusp. I think you got like 78, 79, right?

[00:25:13] And both of us were accepted into PhD programs. Both of us were accepted to get scholarships, but, do you think the situation has changed now? There's much fewer scholarships available, right?

[00:25:24] Michael: I do think that it's become a bit more competitive to get a scholarship. I think you probably will need a first class honours if you want to have a strong chance at getting a scholarship. As for getting into a PhD program though It's probably just as important that you have identified potential supervisors that would be willing to support you for your PhD journey. So it's very hard to get into a PhD program if you haven't already got people that have agreed to supervise you for the four plus years that a PhD takes.

[00:25:57] Bronwyn: Yeah, that's my understanding too.

[00:25:59] Michael: But I think that's enough about me. Why did you choose to study a PhD?

[00:26:04] Bronwyn: So mine is much less gracious than your story. I finished my honors when I was 21 and my honours supervisors said, have you thought about doing a PhD? I said, no. They said, you should do a PhD. I said, okay. Okay, I'll look at the application. Whose names should I put on there for supervisors? Oh just put us down. Okay, cool.

[00:26:31] Michael: I should say that my story is not that too different either. Like the, the autism part was the inspiration for like the subject matter of my PhD. But as far as like thinking about doing a PhD goes, it was just like. I am not ready to get a real job yet, and I can see other people are applying for this other degree after honours, so I'll just go through that as well. I didn't have a plan B. I wasn't really thinking about it at all, which is not advice that I would give to people who are applying for a PhD now.

[00:27:00] Bronwyn: Absolutely like I had no idea what a PhD was. I literally didn't even know that it was a thing that I might not get accepted. I didn't think about these things at all. I had no idea that scholarships were competitive and so when I got the scholarship I was like, okay. I guess I'm going to do this because like you, Michael, I didn't know what I wanted to do. I was still 21. I was still figuring everything out. And I was like, no, I don't see myself working in a nine to five office. I still want to study and learn, but I didn't know what else to do. So I was like, okay, I'll continue with a PhD, which like, like if I was giving advice to anyone, I wouldn't say like, if I was listening to myself being like, Oh, you know, I just think I'll give it a go.

[00:27:41] I'd probably say you need a bit more to start a PhD.

[00:27:44] Michael: Yeah, we were young 20 something year olds not knowing what we were doing, but you listener have now heard from our stories that you should probably think about it a little bit more and while it works out well for us, it might mean a smoother journey for you if you give it a bit more thought as to like, if you want to do the PhD and what you want to study in your PhD and who will supervise you in your PhD rather than just taking the nearest person next to you.

[00:28:10] Bronwyn: I, yeah, just literally just took the nearest people. Um, so, so that was our bumbling journey into doing a PhD. Let's talk about how it went. So maybe we'll do the good things first. What were the highlights of your PhD experience for you?

[00:28:26] Michael: Probably one of the standout parts of the PhD was the opportunity to travel to a couple of international conferences. The travel in itself, being mostly university supported, was pretty amazing. I was able to go to a conference in Rotterdam in the Netherlands and Montreal in Canada, which were just amazing opportunities, but it was also fantastic meeting so many like minded people in my field of study that just wouldn't have happened without a PhD opportunity.

[00:28:56] I think one of the other big aspects of doing a PhD that I enjoyed was that it comes with quite a lot of independence, which makes sense in a way because if they're trying to train you to be an independent researcher then they need to give you some sort of independence to make mistakes and learn things as you go along. So I really enjoyed being able to set my own schedule and do things in the order that interested me.

[00:29:24] And yeah, it was just a, for me, it was quite, for the most part, it was an enjoyable experience. There were definitely times that like stressed me out when, you know, I was losing data or, had to stay at the university for an entire week, pretty much nonstop to get a bunch of data collected. Uh, but for the most part, it was just. It was just an enjoyable learning experience. It didn't really feel like I was studying. It just felt like I was working as a researcher.

[00:29:53] Bronwyn: That's pretty cool.

[00:29:54] Michael: I had good supervisors as well, which made a big difference. Like they were really engaged and interested in what I was doing and they were always available to chat uh, if some things were going wrong, or if some things were going really well and I just wanted to share like good news with them, like they were always around to talk to and I think that probably was the single thing that made the experience a positive one more more than any other.

[00:30:18] How about positive experiences for you? I'm sure if you think hard you will find some.

[00:30:24] Bronwyn: Well, in the first year of my PhD, I mostly had a university funded trip to Peru, which was incredible. I'm so glad that I went there. So I went there for a conference. And that was amazing, like we did the trek to Machu Picchu, I saw Peru, we went to the conference. It was an incredible experience and I'm really grateful that I did it.

[00:30:50] Some other highlights were I did enjoy meeting sleep research colleagues and there was a lot of nice people in the field. I think another good thing about my PhD was that it really did show me that I was capable of more than I thought I was. So there was a time when every day I was thinking, I don't think I can do this. And I've never had to work so hard at something that I thought that I couldn't do and to have finished my PhD and get that doctorate... It's why I use doctor a lot when it's in front of my name, because I have zero imposter syndrome around my PhD simply because I... I know the hardship that I went through and the absolute, like, I really busted my balls to get my PhD. And so I feel very entitled to, to use Doctor.

[00:31:49] Michael: You are.

[00:31:50] Bronwyn: Thank you. Yeah. And, and I make sure that, that I do.

[00:31:57] Michael: I think anyone that's spent years earning their degree should use it wherever possible.

[00:32:04] Bronwyn: Yeah. And challenges. What were some of the challenges that you encountered? That

[00:32:10] Michael: I think one of the biggest challenges I faced was being interested in too many things, and my supervisors just allowing me to follow my interests where they led for the first couple of years of my PhD. So the thesis that you have to write at the end, it needs to be a bunch of studies that do fit together into a cohesive narrative. And I had done a lot of work that was very hard to fit together into a nice, neat package. I wish I had spent more time thinking about the logical progression between each of my studies because when I was putting everything together, I actually had to drop out an entire chapter, which was a study that I had gone to the trouble of publishing in a peer reviewed journal because it just didn't fit in with the rest of my thesis very well.

[00:33:09] I fought hard for a long time to try and like get everything in there because you know, you've done all this work and you want to be able to show it off but at the end of the day, like I just had to cut my baby out.

[00:33:20] Bronwyn: And that would have represented like a year's worth of work at least, right?

[00:33:25] Michael: At least a year's worth of work. And I mean, to be fair, there was other things happening across that year at the same time, but like, I spent a long time on that particular study and it was a shame that my thesis examiners wouldn't have seen it.

[00:33:36] As far as challenges go though, like, that was probably the biggest one. I think if I was to try and come up with more challenges, it would be being a bit dishonest, I think, for people who have had genuine challenges throughout their PhD. I think mine went probably as smooth as possible, so I think one good takeaway from that for listeners is that PHDs can go smoothly, they can finish on time.

[00:34:00] Bronwyn: A lot of people have great experiences.

[00:34:02] Michael: can be an overall positive experience. I think we do hear from a lot of people that PHDs are a miserable experience for want of a better word, but I think I feel very fortunate that mine went pretty well for the most part .

[00:34:16] Bronwyn: Yep. No, and I think that's really important for people to hear because sometimes I go up to other people and I ask them how they're doing with their PhD and how they're going and I'm expecting them to say that they're having a miserable time, but then they're like, I'm having a great time. I'm really enjoying it. So PhDs do and can go very well.

[00:34:35] Michael: Did yours go well?

[00:34:36] Bronwyn: Well, have I got a story for you? Um, my PhD was very, very challenging for several reasons. The number one reason was me. So, during my 20s, I started my PhD when I was 21, my mental health was just very poor throughout my 20s. I was still figuring out who I was, what I wanted to do, where I wanted to be, and I think PhD was secondary to that, and plus I think that my mental health conditions greatly impacted on my ability to maintain good relationships, working relationships with my supervisors, with my peers, with my colleagues, and to enable me to have the discipline to be able to do my PhD.

[00:35:22] As well, I said on the podcast before that I am an ADHDer, and so one of the ways that this comes out is that I'm always looking for a new shiny thing to enjoy and get that dopamine hit from. A PhD, you do not get dopamine hits from. So, I want, I'd say this is quite common experience, but going into my PhD, I did not think that I was a good writer by any stretch, but I thought I was adequate. And then during your PhD, when you submit your writing and you're told to, and I'm not exaggerating, essentially rewrite the whole chapter that you've submitted. And there's lots of crosses and paragraphs. It's like, why have you written this? This doesn't make sense. That kind of stuff. The dopamine hit is quite low and absent. Is that similar for you?

[00:36:11] Michael: Oh, my writing was fantastic, so I got none of that. But yes, it is, it can be challenging getting negative feedback, and when you get negative feedback over a long period of time, I can see how it will take its toll on you and make you not want to continue doing it.

[00:36:26] Bronwyn: Yeah. So for me, like having already had mental health challenges, I was not deriving any sense of self esteem from my PhD. I felt like I was very inept at my PhD and just not doing well. Whereas now with the benefit of hindsight, I realized that a PhD is just hard and that the feedback that I was getting from my supervisors was so integral to my improvement and that every time I did rewrite things, I did get better.

[00:36:52] But at the time, it was really, it was really challenging for me. And so I would seek my dopamine hits from elsewhere. So I was really into public speaking in my twenties and I was really into doing presentations about mental health for the community. And that's where I derived a lot of my self esteem from, which meant that PhD didn't get done.

[00:37:15] Michael: I think that's a good tip though, because a PhD shouldn't be all consuming, as much as the university would want it to be your sole focus for that period of time. It's just really unsustainable. You've got to be able to do things that you enjoy doing and it's really good that you found things that you did get a dopamine hit from because yeah, the PhD is not going to be always giving it to you.

[00:37:38] Bronwyn: no, absolutely not. Yeah. And I'd say one of the other challenges I had was not being aware of PhD etiquette. I know that sounds weird, but for an ADHD and neurodiverse person, it's really hard coming into the research world and not understanding how you're supposed to interact with your supervisors. Are they my friends? Are they my superiors? Do I hang out with them? Do I speak formally to them? These are the kind of questions that neurodiverse folks have and I didn't have any guidance on how to work through this... I think because I was isolating myself from my peers, but I also didn't feel confident to bring it up.

[00:38:16] And so consequently, this is why I had to restart my PhD. I didn't know that you're, you should do your PhD topic on a topic that is of interest to your supervisors. I did not know that. It's so obvious now, but I didn't know that the two were connected. And so, of course, when my PhD proposed topic wasn't aligned with my supervisors, they would prioritize other projects, understandably, and then I wouldn't get the support that I needed.

[00:38:45] And that led to me a year and a half later after studying being like, okay, I need to do a topic that is of relevant to their research interests as well, or change PhD supervisors... I changed topics instead. So that was a big challenge for me. And, you know, when you look at it, it's like, well, that was a year and a half long lesson.

[00:39:04] Michael: It's a very time expensive lesson.

[00:39:06] Bronwyn: Absolutely.

[00:39:07] Michael: it's good that you had the opportunity to restart rather than just like, okay, I'm done.

[00:39:13] Bronwyn: Yeah. And then I think the final challenge that I want to speak to is just, it's, it's not so much a challenge, but a lesson is that I worked out while I was doing my PhD that I didn't want to be a full time academic. And the reason why I didn't want to be a full time academic was because it involves lots of applying for grants, and there's a very slim chance in the Australian landscape that you'll be successful for grants.

[00:39:35] So I've seen the struggles that Michael has gone through in applying for grants only to be rejected or have months of uncertainty where the grant agencies don't get back to you on your application. You have no idea whether you're going to be employed. So it's very much grant contract to grant contract.

[00:39:51] I didn't want that instability. I didn't want to spend all that time writing grants. I much prefer interacting with people. And so I decided about four years into my PhD that I think I wanted to switch careers. I didn't want to give up my PhD, but what I wanted to do was become a psychologist. And that's when I did my master's in 2017. I had applied for a few years before then, but was unsuccessful. And I do think that 2017 was the right time... see previous discussion on mental health conditions. They, they were getting better by the time I was doing my master's. Um, but yeah, that was a real challenge to me. So I think if, if I had had more. Mentorship around the PhD, that would have been incredibly helpful for me. But I also think if I had started my PhD at a later age, then that would have been much better for me as well.

[00:40:41] Michael: So one of your hot tips is to be older.

[00:40:44] Bronwyn: Be older. Like at least in your 30s, like I reckon.

[00:40:49] Michael: I think because the PhD involves essentially like a long term relationship with a couple of supervisors, it does require a degree of emotional maturity in order to maintain that relationship which all the university study up until that point has been like semester by semester and you'll have a tutor for a while that you'll see for a few weeks and then you won't see them again.

[00:41:09] So I can understand that if you're still quite young, it could be a challenging relationship to manage and without some additional guidance, it could have some negative consequences.

[00:41:22] Bronwyn: That said, the guidance that I did seek out was from the Thesis Whisperer, which I don't know if it's still going, but it was a really popular blog the whole time. I was doing my PhD and it was started by Inger Mewburn, who was, I'm surprised I remember that, but she had such an influential impact on me. And she was from the Australia National University and she wrote all these blogs around the PhD experience and she had interviews and how to get through it. That was really helpful. I'm really grateful for that resource.

[00:41:48] Michael: Yeah, and if you're interested in a PhD, it could be worth checking out that blog just to get a bit of insight as to some perspectives. Wasn't she like the research coordinator at ANU?

[00:41:57] Bronwyn: Yep.

[00:41:57] Michael: So she was hands on with a lot of students.

[00:41:59] Bronwyn: Yeah.

[00:41:59] Michael: Despite all the troubles, do you think it was worth doing your PhD? Like, would you do it again?

[00:42:05] Bronwyn: I wouldn't do it again. But I...

[00:42:07] Michael: are you glad you've done it?

[00:42:08] Bronwyn: I'm very glad I've done it and I think it was 100 percent worth it. So the reason why I think it was 100 percent worth it was because with my PhD project, my supervisor, whose name is Colin McLeod, my main supervisor, I think one of his strengths was in very rigorously building a skill set in thinking academically and in being able to support your thoughts with a very logical process, being able to propose and test hypotheses in a way that matches up because you can falter at any stage of the research. You could propose a hypothesis and then not design a research study that effectively tests that hypothesis and then go on to report results and it's like your study wasn't designed to test the hypothesis that you proposed in the first place.

[00:43:02] And so I feel like Colin has instilled in me just a very rigorous and logical approach to research, to thinking, to logic, to making claims about evidence, which I carry with me into everything I do. It's, it's like learning a whole new language. I honestly feel like I have a whole different way of seeing the world.

[00:43:23] It's also very easy for me to read research and understand it and be able to assess the quality of that research and integrate it into my practice as a psychologist, which I think not having a PhD, I just wouldn't have the skills, which makes sense after spending eight years doing my PhD.

[00:43:42] So I'm really grateful for the skills that I've learned through my PhD and even in our relationship, like both of us having PhDs, we'll make claims about things and I'll be like, um, that's a bit strong to make that claim. And I'll be like, do you have evidence to back that up? Um, I think you need to use language that isn't so strong with your claim. That kind of

[00:44:02] Michael: Go collect some more data first test your hypothesis.

[00:44:05] Bronwyn: Yeah, and it really comes into everything. So I'm, I'm very grateful for this wonderful skill set that a PhD has provided me with. What about you?

[00:44:15] Michael: Now, I'm really glad to hear that you've got it such a positive outlook, considering

[00:44:20] Bronwyn: The challenges?

[00:44:21] Michael: ...the awful time, well, it wasn't an awful time...

[00:44:24] Bronwyn: No it was!

[00:44:25] Michael: At times it was awful.

[00:44:27] Bronwyn: It was awful... a great deal of the time.

[00:44:29] Michael: It's probably unsurprising, considering that I've already spoken quite positively about my PhD experience, that I am glad that I've done it. I think I do really enjoy doing research.

[00:44:40] It's not something that is an opportunity to everyone. So I feel quite privileged that I was had the door open to me to study a PhD and then continue some research work at the university. It's a work style that really suits me and I hope I will research will be in my life for many years to come.

[00:44:59] Bronwyn: Yeah, so like, what would you say to someone who is PhD curious and they're sitting in front of you and they're like, meh, I'm thinking about doing a PhD. What would you say to them? What's your advice?

[00:45:08] Michael: I'd say don't go for it unless you have something that you're very passionate about. Working in an autism research lab. Most of the PhD and Honours students there have some personal connection to Autism so they are very enthused about conducting Autism research and I think that enthusiasm is necessary in order to make it to the end of the degree.

[00:45:35] Bronwyn: Any other advice?

[00:45:36] Michael: Do some background research on the people you want to approach for supervision. I think given that you'll be working with them for at least four years that you want to make sure that they are people you are compatible with, make sure that your research interests are aligned with their research interests.

[00:45:52] Bronwyn: I think that's a good set of advice. And I would add to that, if you can talk to existing supervisees of the supervisors you're thinking of undertaking a PhD with, do do that. Ask them how are they like with giving you feedback? What's it like talking to them? If you have an idea, how receptive are they to that idea?

[00:46:12] Are they willing to show you how to do things? That kind of stuff. Are they good with paperwork? Do they sign things on time? You know, just get a, you know, everything doesn't have to be perfect, but you want to know what you're getting into.

[00:46:23] Michael: Yeah, more information is always a good thing. Any other final thoughts?

[00:46:28] Bronwyn: I think the advice that I'd give to someone who is PhD curious in front of me would be to think about why you're doing the PhD. Is it to get the title of doctor? If so, I don't think that that is sufficient motivation to carry you through. Would you agree?

[00:46:46] Michael: Yeah, I've heard of advice along these lines where, yeah if your sole motivation is to just become a doctor, that you will resent your title if you do finish your PhD for the amount of time that you've wasted on it, the amount of money or lost opportunities that you've had because you've spent it all on this degree... you're not using the qualification.

[00:47:11] Bronwyn: Whereas for me, it doesn't bother me that I'm technically not working in research full time because I love learning and my greatest passion in life is learning. I know I said at the start that it's like, I didn't want to explain to other people and that's true, but you know, it was also, I was making a little joke, but you know, what kept me going was I love learning.

[00:47:31] And so I'd really recommend that you assess your motivations because it is such a long haul degree. And then I would say, really think about how this could fit into your life. When I was doing my PhD, I always set aside at least two days a week to do PhD. When I was doing my Master's and then I was working in private practice, I would squeeze in 30 minutes a day of PhD. And I would do that by doing it straight after work. So I was working in a hospital at the time and I had to clock off at work and then sit down at the desk at work, so free time, and then do 30 minutes of my PhD, just so I could keep up the momentum. It really has to fit in with your life. And if you've got, if you've got kids, you need to be able to have some kid free time because you cannot do the cognitive work that's involved in doing a PhD when you've got a two year old hanging off you.

[00:48:23] Michael: I've seen people try and it's very challenging.

[00:48:25] Bronwyn: It is super challenging. Kudos to all those parents who have done and are continuing to do PhDs. Hats off to you.

[00:48:31] Michael: I feel like we've often painted a PhD as like this like really scary thing that is...

[00:48:36] Bronwyn: because it is.

[00:48:38] Michael: seems impossible to complete and like an awful experience at times, but I think it can be helpful to break down the PhD into the opportunities that happen across the course of the study.

[00:48:51] During a PhD, you're going to learn how to write academic papers. You're going to learn how to do programming or run research studies. You're going to learn how to critically appraise research papers, communicate research. You'll potentially be a leader in your field of research that you're interested in.

[00:49:11] You'll have opportunities to travel and meet people domestically and internationally. You'll meet lots of similarly minded people at the university as well. There's just, yeah, so many things that will happen over the course of your PhD that I think it can be helpful to think of it as like a whole bunch of things that will happen during it's like four years of studies rather than just like, I will have a research degree.

[00:49:36] Bronwyn: You'll also become really good at Excel. I wanted to mention that.

[00:49:40] Michael: Get, get friendly with Excel.

[00:49:43] Bronwyn: like I really wow my colleagues, like, if I go anywhere else, and they're like, well, you can do that with Excel, and I'm like, yep, it's my sum formula. It's my what if formula. What a pro.

[00:49:52] Michael: So if you really hate Excel, then maybe a PhD isn't for you. No, that's not true. There's plenty of PhDs that don't need excel.

[00:50:01] Bronwyn: I think that's a wrap then. What do you think, Michael?

[00:50:03] Michael: I think that's enough on PhDs for now.

[00:50:05] Bronwyn: So the next episode will be for the PhD Ready, and this will be a bonus episode available for Patreon members. You can join the Patreon for one month for two bucks, and then you can unsubscribe from the Patreon if you so desire, or you can continue to support the podcast with your two dollars a month.

[00:50:21] I think this would be a really great bonus episode, it will cover exactly what you need to know to apply for a PhD. To the initial stages of doing a PhD and we will cover all the ins and outs of being PhD ready. So resources that you will find helpful for navigating the initial stages of doing a PhD and keeping you going throughout it.

[00:50:45] Michael: Yeah, lots of tips on how to survive your PhD and get to the end with your head still intact.

[00:50:49] Bronwyn: Absolutely. The link is in the show notes to the Patreon. I look forward to having a few of you listen to the bonus ep.

[00:50:56] And listeners, thank you so much for listening. This episode was brought to you by our lovely sponsor, the Australian Association for Psychologists Incorporated. And if you are loving the show and you don't want to miss an episode, press follow on your podcast listening app.

[00:51:11] And if you know someone who would love this episode, they are PhD curious or you think they might be, let them know, share it with them. Word of mouth is definitely the best way to get the podcast into new ears.

[00:51:22] That's a wrap. Thanks for listening again. Have a good one and catch you next time.

[00:51:26] Bye!​