My Ph.D. so far… one for anyone who’s given it the slightest, the most brief of thoughts!

I was told at the beginning to expect ups and downs and golly they were right… some of the highlights have been smashing number-of-participant targets (currently 169, including some stunners that I shouldn’t really put up on here, as we’re trying to maintain confidentiality!), making contacts in the real world and experiencing the human side of this mammoth task… not to mention the group of amazing people I have got to know here… each studying completely different phenomena, which makes for great dinner conversation!

Those ups have been accompanied by a less-than-non-existent literature review (which is meant to serve as the basis of any future research), moments of spontaneous and unpredictable periods of daydreaming or even sleep!  More commonly, I have also experienced uncertainty, intellectual insecurity (probably arising from the lack of literature review!) and frustration.

I’m not far enough into it to say whether I would recommend it, but what I would say is that it has most definitely lived up to what people said it would do by way of personal development.  The necessity to improve oneself by surmounting obstacles rather than wilt with trepidation is so far for me unrivalled.