May 11, 2016, by Lisa Chin
Ph.D: A Platform for Personal Development
This post is written by Viknesh Andiappan, Ph.D candidate from the Department of Chemical and Environmental Engineering / Centre for Sustainable Palm Oil Research.
There is a general consensus in the industrial or corporate world that Ph.D holders are nerds who are unable to function in the real world. In fact, Ph.D graduates are often judged as “self-absorbed nut-jobs that they are lost in their own space of obscurity”. This is an especially pertinent attitude to pay attention to in technical fields like engineering and science. But isn’t doing a Ph.D a self-made sacrifice to science and research for the betterment of society? And do Ph.D or research personnel in general, deserve such flak? This may be a tough pill to swallow, but the answer is YES. Of course, we could dispute this by claiming that Ph.D students are unfairly judged and that this generalisation is not representative of the population in question. Some may also argue (myself included) that only a handful of people outside academia feel this way and that it should be taken with a pinch of salt. But surely you have heard of the saying “it takes two hands to clap” right? It is important to not fool ourselves into thinking that we are not even partially responsible for our obscurity outside academia. A genuine Ph.D student or researcher, is one that is able to accept criticism and capitalise on the opportunity for further improvement. With this in mind, let us understand the legitimacy behind such a discriminative view and identify key areas for improvement.
So why do Ph.D graduates generally receive such hostility from the industrial or corporate world? There might be several (overlapping) reasons. But in this piece, we’ll examine one reason in particular, which is the lack of personal development. Personal development is a way for people to assess their skills and qualities, consider their aims in life and set goals in order to realise and maximise their potential. The pursuit of a Ph.D often has a synonymous equivalence to personal development. It is known that Ph.D students tend to spend “unhealthy” amount of hours thinking and working towards solutions for a given Ph.D research. Such prolonged focus however, can often derail one’s pursuit towards reaching the ultimate goal of personal development, which is self-actualisation. Do not be alarmed by this rather fancy term. Self-actualisation is a term commonly used in the field of psychology to describe one’s desire ‘to become everything that they are capable of becoming’. In other words, it refers to self-fulfilment and the need to reach full potential as a unique human being. To some, self-actualisation may be a very idealistic and poetic goal to strive for. But is it really? It is crucial to remember that pursuing a Ph.D adds value to one’s self. But such value may not shine through if one does not have the necessary personal development.
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“…pursuing a Ph.D adds value to one’s self. But such value may not shine through if one does not have the necessary personal development”
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There are several areas in which a Ph.D student could explore in regards to personal development. The following are just some suggestive areas in which a Ph.D student may find intriguing to pursue in order to further their development;
- Knowledge Sharing rather than Knowledge Hoarding
In an era of Information Technology, we are exposed to various means of attaining knowledge e.g. internet. In this respect, we now have to filter and absorb dense information in order to learn to something new. As a result, learning something new may often require time and patience, which is not generously available in both academic and corporate environments. This is why collaboration and consolidation of knowledge among peers is required to ensure the right information is shared. Let us formally understand what knowledge sharing is. It is an act of exchanging information, skills, expertise between people, peers, and organisation. Some people object to sharing as they fear that “if I share my piece of knowledge with everyone I will lose the X-Factor of mine which always keeps me recognised and someone else would ripe the fruits of my ideas”. But this is a general misconception, commonly found in academia. The benefit of sharing or transferring knowledge is very similar to teaching. The more one teaches or conveys a certain topic, the better one understands it. To maximise this benefit, Ph.D students should recognise the importance of three individuals as shown in Figure 1. Figure 1 suggests that students should have a person who is older, admired and more successful to learn from (typically the supervisor or co-supervisor) as a mentor. A mentor can point out mistakes, show direction and even provide useful advice to attain a certain goal. Following this, students should also have a peer/colleague to exchange ideas with. A peer could be from a common supervisor, research area, department and even university. Peers may offer different perspectives to the topic being discussed. Such perspective is crucial as Ph.D students are often guilty of developing a bias towards a topic they have spent too much time on. A refreshing perspective from a peer may come in handy, as it opens up opportunities for further improvement or even point out flaws that were not very obvious initially. Lastly, Ph.D students should have a person younger to coach in order to stay energised. Taking up the role of mentorship at this stage provides students a chance to sharpen the ability to spot and communicate mistakes made and go out of their way to guide others under tutelage to improve, which of course is an essential for (but not limited to) those who plan to remain in academia after the Ph.D.
Figure 1
Aside from this, having a contagious habit of sharing knowledge can open doors to future collaborations. Such opportunity is imperative if students would like to remain in academia after their Ph.D. Student should consider taking the initiative of sharing with other students or researchers at conference venues as a means of networking. By sharing knowledge first, one is actually “breaking the ice” and providing value to the other prior to forming collaborations.
- Forming Cognitive and Dynamic Research Groups
This point is somewhat similar to the one made previously. A research group may seem rather professional or academic in nature, but it is important to know how easy it is to set one up informally. A research group can be easily set up informally by organising a group of students working with common supervisors (or co-supervisors), research areas and even departments. The benefit of such organisation is that students can get together and have discussions over issues faced in their work or test out preliminary concepts. Aside from this, students can take this group as a platform to sharpen their communication and presentation skills. Students have informal presentation sessions among each other and gather feedback on how to improve their ability to communicate their work across. As mentioned previously, the feedback of a peer also gives a different view of a research problem. Of course, such groups could extend formally to include the supervisors and co-supervisor depending on their availability. But the whole point here is to have students meet in an informal setting to discuss their issues, ideas or concepts that require fine tuning. This will help students nurture their inner team spirit, making them easily adjusted to working in team-based environments.
- Sharpening Presentation and/or Communication Skills
Presentations – whether oral or poster, presentations are not a trivial way of extending personal development. However, most Ph.D students tend to squirm at the thought of presenting something so intellectually dense in front of a technical (or general) audience that is probably waiting to rip them to shreds during the questions and answers (Q&A) session. As dramatic as it sounds, it is imperative that students recognise the true purpose behind presentations. Presentations are often similar to giving a sales pitch. In this sense, having the ability to “sell” or convince an audience on the relevance behind your work, is a skill highly desirable not just in academia, but also outside academia. As for the daunting Q&A session that awaits after a given presentation, Ph.D students should just lighten up and relax! Yes, like every other “sales person”, one would probably get shot with heavy loaded questions, but isn’t that the whole point of continuous improvement? One should not feel ashamed of admitting something they have no knowledge of. At the same time, one could gracefully accept it as an area for further investigation, which of course is not a lie anyway! Feedback from presentations allows students to reflect on their experiences and look for directions to address weaknesses pointed out by the audience. Note that such feedback does not necessarily mean there is something trivial about the work itself, it could just be the manner in which it was communicated across and understood by the audience. This is a firm indicator of the level of communication skills a student has mastered at any given point of time.
- Word Choice: Balance between Big and Short Words
This is probably the most redundant tip given to Ph.D students. This tip entails that students must refrain from heavy use of topic specific jargons or “big” words and keep their presentation as simple as possible. On the contrary to popular belief, this piece suggests a different direction on the use of words in communicating one’s research. As an illustrative case study, we can draw our attention to two popular yet distinctive personalities; current presidential candidate gunning for the Republican nomination, Donald Trump and actor/comedian, Russell Brand. For those who follow presidential campaigns in the United States (US), ever wondered why Donald Trump is rapidly gaining support in the US despite the vast criticism of his policies? Donald Trump speaks in very simple words. In fact, a YouTube channel called Charisma on Command claimed that he uses an average of one syllable per word and speaks at a low school level standard! But why is he so memorable and persuasive then? Because simple and short words stick in one’s head. On the other hand, we have Russell Brand who is also charismatic and persuasive too, yet speaks in the exact opposite way of Donald Trump! So which is better, the use of big words or short words? And should one speak/present/communicate in just one style? The answer is, BOTH styles should be considered based on the audience. Smaller words such as ‘big’ are commonly used, easily understood and has a stronger emotional impact in a wider audience, which is why it works for Donald Trump in politics. In fact, the use of simple words has a second advantage. Since simple words are easily understood, listeners generally tend to believe it to be the truth. In contrast, big words or jargons are generally puffed up speech that is tough to understand and has very limited meaning. Because big words have limited meaning, we often see it being used in areas of specialisation e.g., research, consultation, etc. Unfortunately, big words are often deemed as pretentious as they conceal true meaning from general audiences and limit their attention span. Which is why we tend to squirm at the thought of listening to economists speak about the stock market and economy over the news. However, the crucial distinction about big words is that although they have limited meaning, they are often used to reflect precision. Words like ‘colossal’ or ‘humongous’ would help one imagine an idea or story vividly, which can be advantageous in some instances.
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“Because big words have limited meaning, we often see it being used in areas of specialisation. Unfortunately, big words are often deemed as pretentious as they conceal true meaning from general audiences and limit their attention span”
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So understanding advantages of both short and big words provides Ph.D students the ability to tailor their speech according the audience and find the right balance between words. If students insist on throwing only big words at the audience, it would not make them able communicators and they are surely not going to influence anyone to think that they are anything but just plain arrogant.
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Short Words = Truth (Apparently)
Big Words = Precision
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- Having a Business Perspective toward Research
It is understandable that Ph.D students invest their time into answering specific research questions. Such commitment often leads them to forget the higher purpose of doing the given research. Research is essentially a novel activity. But people outside academia particularly, will not be able to appreciate the efforts put into research if they cannot relate to its significance. This brings us to the point of having a business-like mind-set towards research. It is necessary for students to answer this question “Although I’m doing a Ph.D on a very specific topic, how does this contribute to society?” Say, a student is working on introducing nanoparticles into computer-based circuitry to enhance the efficiency of information transfer. From a researcher’s standpoint, the contribution could already be obvious. However, students must enforce the reason to conduct such research. Does it make computers send emails faster? Does it reduce delays in internet upload speed? The point here is to make an intimate association between the research work and its direct/indirect contribution to society because these are explicit issues society is more concerned with. If societal contributions are identified appropriately, they would be major selling points for any research.
In a nutshell, the aforementioned areas are suggested based on opinions gathered from industrial partners, academics and the general workforce. Certainly, the level in which a student can reach in their personal development is dependent on each individual.
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