Keeping the Plates Spinning During a PhD

What's it like to be in the middle of a PhD, balancing personal life, professional commitments, research and other academic work? Rachel King is in the second year of her PhD in Health Research at the University of Sheffield School of Health and Related Research (ScHARR). Here, she explains why managing a PhD can be like spinning plates (and why that's OK).

As I approach the end of my second year of PhD, I’m reminded of the old circus trick of spinning plates on top of poles: if you stop they come crashing down around you!

It feels like I have many plates to spin at the moment, some old ones from my pre-PhD life, and some newer ones related to my PhD and preparation for a future career.

I’m going to talk about some of them in this post – using those plates as a metaphor for what it feels like to be partway through a PhD. Hopefully I can also use them to serve up a little advice for future students.

These plates, although old and imperfect, represent my previous career, skills and experience. They are still valuable and need to be prevented from smashing.

Clinical nursing

Before I began my PhD, I worked as a clinical nurse for 15 years and developed associated professional skills and experience. I feel that it is important to maintain these, for several reasons.

First, there is no guaranteed job at the end of a PhD, so it will be useful to keep my foot in the door.

I also feel that keeping up to date with our ever-changing healthcare service is incredibly important in preparing for a future career in research or teaching advanced nursing practice.

For these reasons, I’ve continued to work one nursing shift every fortnight during my PhD. I’ve found this has helped me balance progressing my studies and maintaining my clinical skills.

Childcare

My children are now 11 and 13, and getting more and more independent. However I still feel it is important to make time for them after school, chatting about their day, driving them to clubs, and cooking a "relatively" healthy meal.

One of the benefits of PhD study is that my time is more flexible than previous work, so I can normally attend an important school event at relatively short notice, or work from home if they are unwell.

Hobbies

Time away from the PhD is vitally important in maintaining a healthy body and mind.

I love keeping active, spending my spare time running, cycling, and walking with my family.

I also attend a church as I recognise that my spiritual wellbeing is essential to keeping a healthy perspective and staying calm throughout my studies.

Of course, there also plenty of new skills - and "plates" - I'm picking up as I develop as my research develops.

The PhD study

By far the biggest plate (!) – but one that’s spinning well as I reach the halfway mark for my doctorate.

Study design, and data collection have been completed; analysis is ongoing and the all-important thesis-writing phase has commenced.

This was initially an overwhelming task, but it has been helpful to devise a writing plan, breaking it down into more manageable sections.

Writing papers

Not everyone publishes during a PhD, but there can be a pressure to do so, particularly in a field like mine.

This can feel like additional work, but the benefits are very clear:

As well as increasing your research-gate statistics (research gate is a social networking site used to share papers and network with other science researchers), publishing gives you valuable kudos in your viva and looks great on your CV.

My supervisors have emphasised the importance of publications and I am currently awaiting comments from peer reviewers after submitting corrections to a paper based on my PhD literature review.

Conferences

It can also be important for PhD researchers to seek opportunities to present and discuss their work at academic conferences.

This provides invaluable opportunities to learn from experts in your field, offers a forum to test out your findings, and looks great on your CV.

I talked a bit about my conference experience in my previous blog. Since then I have had an abstract accepted at a conference in September 2017 - added motivation to make some sense out of my data!

Teaching

There are often opportunities for PhD students to get involved in teaching at their university.

Over the past year I have been involved in teaching post-graduate nurses and undergraduate medical students. It would be foolish for me to turn down such offers as University lecturing may be a possible career choice after my PhD.

Although this work has taken a significant amount of time, it has been extremely rewarding; giving me the chance to talk about my PhD in a more practical forum, and providing insights into a career in teaching.

What is apparent from talking about the above ‘plates’ is that they are all important.

Would I prefer to spin fewer of them? Not at all. I love the new challenges I’m facing during a PhD, but know that my existing skills and commitments are still valuable.

I also recognise that some of these plates may eventually become less important, or no longer relevant. (But I’ll look forward to replacing some of them, if they do drop).

Serving up a little advice

Daunting as it sounds, "spinning plates" during a PhD can be a satisfying and fulfilling experience.

My advice would be to go for it (you’ll be surprised how well you do). But you should also make sure your PhD supervisors are aware of all the plates in your life!

So, on that note, I need to get back to analysing my data, planning a teaching session and getting ready for my next nursing shift!

Acknowledgements: My PhD is funded by the Collaboration for Leadership in Applied Health Research and Care Yorkshire and Humber (NIHR CLAHRC YH). The views and opinions expressed are those of the author, and not necessarily those of the NHS, the NIHR or the University of Sheffield.