PhD: How do I get started?

Hi

Getting into a PhD program is a growing area of interest for young psychologists from various backgrounds. 'Psych-Bloomers' or young psychologists want to know how to get into the program because it is the highest form of formal education that one can get into. A higher qualification has proven to be a reliable marker for expertise in a given field. Expertise in psychological research is a valuable asset in a psychologists' exploration of behavioural mysteries. Pursuing a PhD gives an opportunity to you for formulating better research questions, carry out research in a lab/field setting, secure funding for/ carrying out a study, maintaining and managing lab premises, etc. Thanks to LinkedIn and other social media students and professionals, alike, are able to share their questions about pursuing a PhD. I took the liberty to convey my experience and lessons that I acquired through applying for various PhD programs and summarized them in this brief write-up. This text contains two parts: (1) Most frequent questions I get asked about getting into a doctoral program and (2) My own queries that I learned a bit about along my career. I am almost certain that this field is an interplay between following a 'set-plan' and improvising and toggling your strategy as the arrow of your career moves forward. I pray that the reader is able to extract what's relevant to them and be cognizant of the other things because they may come your way, it is simply a matter of the length of your career.

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How/Where should I start?

You have to start with getting associated with research and academic activities. So, my basic assumption is that readers of this text are majorly divided into two categories: certain and exploring, whichever two categories you may belong to your initial step is the same either ways. Any activity that exposes you to the current research and prompts you to get engaged into contributing to research is a good start. It is fairly important to mention that academic activities and research activities are not the same. I often get quizzed by my peers who are attempting to get into research programs and who are working in other fields about my future career plans. While there is no certain answer to that given the broad-range of that question, a most probable assumption is that I will end up working in academia as a professor/research associate. Getting involved through participation and careful observation with the academic setting is the key to choosing a side when it comes to certainty and exploring. It is so, because it allows you to either get acclimatized?to the academic environment, if you belong to the 'certain' category or get knowledge and clarity about the field, if you belong to the 'exploring' category. A good exercise to add accountability to your progress in the decision-making is the factor of participation. A accurate and deep reflection of your research and academics is a dual indicator of, your logic behind getting into a PhD program is solid, and of a much more meaningful insight into your own subjective sense of 'if you fit in this in this field' or more importantly if 'this field fits you'.

Second, you want to keep an account of your take-aways and learnings from the various research or academic practices. Writing and using Excel sheets to surmise your findings allows you to figure out the gaps in your work and gaps in the work you go through. This practice of record-keeping allows you to formalize your subjective experience, sort of give it a token. When you return to this text/tabular token, you are able to reflect and respond to your on-going exploration. I am aware that taking on formal-research related pursuits can be a subject of significant anxiety and stress, especially so, if you've not had much exposure to begin with. Someone put it well when they said that research can be a solitary pursuit, also perhaps could be referred to as the fabled 'lonely path' (1). It is a solitary pursuit because the number of references and information that you've access to reduces dramatically when it comes to moving ahead in the field and not because there is an actual lack of professionals working in this field that can help you make some decisions. Additionally, it is a field that requires a lot of self-assurance and discipline to perform tasks from scratch, therefore, selectors naturally look for those skills indirectly. You could liken this scenario as a pre-PhD training ground because starting into a doctoral program, my experience is in a sense says, the current tasks that I do are nothing but an extension of the same practices I used to do when I was applying for the programs.

Given you have access to your professors and academic supervisors, it is imperative that you involve them in your decision-making process. In my personal experience, I didn’t have access to my university much before I could do anything to improve my odds of getting into a PhD program due to the unfortunate but necessary lockdowns of mid-summer 2020 to control the COVID outbreak in my country. Therefore, given the things I know now, I highly recommend the readers to get in touch with their senior academic colleagues like professors, various department heads, mentors through internship, seniors from different batches. I will take this opportunity to caution the reader about the prerequisite expected of you before you approach a supervisor, as I get frequent feedbacks that the professors aren't very helpful in the setting the student currently are in. I advise you to expect not to be spoon-fed and do your homework before you visit a professor with your questions. A helpful example in understanding this could be the example of a sense of expectation in your mind that the professors will give you a simplified and contained answer. They wont and they cannot because there aren't any simplified close-ended, one-covers-all answers for your specific requirements.?The easiest way to tackle this is to simplify the role of a expert . The expert, be it your teacher, senior, academic supervisor, manager, etc. can guide you about your career with your already available information and knowledge and therefore, cannot provide you with new information. It is much likelier to get a positive response from your expert, if you are well-informed and ask precise questions.

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I began, now what??

Great! You've began exploring (4) and now you've good hindsight about your research and academic activities along with the support of your academic superiors. The next step is to determine which field and more precisely what are some of the doctoral programs that suit you, with the help of the previously acquired resources. A good place to begin will be exploring the institutes that have been mentioned by the review of your literature i.e., the department and then the name of the reporting author. I recommend making an spreadsheet of all the departments you can find and giving them a subjective score on your own scale for your preference for that institute. The astute of you would already predict where this leads the process, as giving a subjective score of your preference will allow you to prioritize your destinations. Now, you go online through any search engine of your liking and look up the department websites listed in your spreadsheet. Make categories for yourself that would be required for you to judge a good doctoral program and mark those categories for each department you choose. Lastly, I also want to mention the importance of making this process a bit creative by making the spreadsheet easy to look at, and more importantly making it something you want to revisit frequently (2).

Having a summarized preference spreadsheet allows you to have various kinds of information about different universities at one place which makes accessing them easier for you. One of the kind of information you can add for yourself in such a spreadsheet is email addresses of professors who are looking to accept students in their labs/departments. The interested participant must try to send in well-articulated, communicative and concise show-of-interest emails at the earliest possible. About eight months before the academic year of the university begins would prove to be an ideal time to do this activity, as interested professors will write back to you and both of you get enough time to get accustomed to each other and know better if you the other person is the right fit for them. I get asked about and do understand the plight of fresh graduates who write in emails to no response from the professors i.e., cold mails. I have myself gone through it and I want to assure the applicants this is a natural part of the process. It takes time but they do respond. Next, condition that often gets raised in the discussions on applying for a PhD is on the appropriate amount of time one should wait before sending an email on a cold mail chain. The answer is not unanimously agreed upon, but I think about one week is a good enough time to send in reminder mails, usually the first thing Monday morning around the beginning of work hours would increase your chances of being responded to.

This is the hard part, apart from the soul-killingly boring process of applying every where writing the same information about yourself on however many universities you choose to apply. You will be contacted by the interested professors who like your work history (3). If you are not contacted by all the professors you wrote to, the course of action changes, you will need to re-evaluate your list of emails and make edits in different sections. You need to create a side spread sheet or side sheet, if you will. This spread sheet contains a set of feedbacks and reviews written by both you and a more knowledgeable other. There is a dual reason for this, as it allows you to re-evaluate your own work and make improvements, as well as gives you a testing round to cross check the particulars of your work and ensure its effective communication. Often students, myself included, reduce the attention they give to solid critical evaluation from another person and this disallows them to test out their own communication skills effectively. I assure you that critical evaluation from your peers is a central theme of your doctoral journey and like before, you can consider this to be your training ground. Therefore, a repeat follows all the way from where you need to start, and thanks to the self and peer assessment of your work, you are trying again with improved odds of getting a response from your preferred professors/universities.

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Rinse and repeat.

Concludingly, I would like to re-iterate that getting into PhD is not about making your application process stand out by experimenting a lot of different ways in which you can get into an international PhD program, rather, more accurately its about trying the learned process repeatedly while re-tuning your communication skills consistently. I have tried to address a lump sum of the questions that I receive almost on a daily basis, in a coherent form because the alternative of stating the questions explicitly and answering them all wasn’t practical, engaging nor something someone can take out of valuable lessons from. On a personal note, I'd like to add, and a personal note is quite important to have in this field,?(I'd say a 'personal note' is a requirement for being a good psychologist) is that we all consider academics to be linear and strict discipline where a false sense of entitlement plagues students and they often forget that the real world has inconsistencies and flaws. All our prayers aren’t answered all the time but if you've been reading me for quite some time, you know that I am a firm believer in how big numbers and various variables interact and produce an outcome. This process of getting admitted into a dream PhD course is no different, therefore its all about your odds. The only thing you can keep in your control is your own effort and sometimes not even that, but what's important is to produce actions that you can look back on with a sense of meaning and hopefully, some awe too. I got admitted into a PhD program with full fellowship, after a year and give or take a few more months, thanks to diligent efforts and a continuous feedback-based routine that allowed me to refine my communication skills. Needless to mention, I was rejected by a lot of universities too (11, to be precise) but I kept at it, and so should you.

I am aware that this blog may not answer all your questions and that I have not covered a lot of micro-steps that I also consider important for getting into a PhD i.e., writing a resume or CV, getting involved in publications, acquiring letters of recommendation, bureaucratic issues, etc. For example, I came very close to getting selected in very prestigious university and I was dropped from the program after receiving a selection email due to the supposed bureaucratic issues. Furthermore, I am aware that applying for a PhD in India and applying for one abroad are vastly different endeavors. Maybe, I will cover it in the next blog, should you find this blog useful. I suppose this a good start. What do you think?

Keep thinking,

Anand

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Footnotes:???

1-- On a personal note, I feel a sense of isolation seems to be a natural part of this line of work, so do not worry about why are you getting nervous post your decision to pursue a PhD. It is essentially a feeling that results as a response to the sense of failure in your pursuit. It fades away and you learn to deal with it better as the time progresses and you become more reflective of your own work. This shouldn't make you second guess your decision to apply for a PhD.

2-- You're doing this for yourself, the only person that needs to take the decision is you, but having a clear and concise data summarization will help others understand and guide you better. Perhaps, you like a university better than the other but you've decided against it because your data spread of objective markers says other wise. Additionally, I caution the reader that it often gets difficult to come back to your own summary because we create a mental task to sit through our work and re-invent it, in some ways. Be careful & be regular.

3-- I am leaving a lot out on this for example how to write a proper email to the professors and attaching a CV of your work that accurately and engagingly invites the professor to learn about your capabilities. Perhaps, I will mention this in my other blog posts. Please reach out to me if you need help with these sections.?

4-- Whether you are 'certain' or 'exploring', a distinction I made in the earlier section, at this point of time people from both categories are explorers, to a certain extent!

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