I have recently started accumulating quite a lot of experience mentoring students with career aspirations in STEM subjects, in particular in academic research. Such a career path is indeed very challenging and requires a huge amount of hard work, mental and physical resilience, dedication and a little drop of masochism to pull through the long and frustrating studies leading up to the dreamy end of a successful science career. There are many obstacles and points where everybody feels like giving up, especially women find many of the additional complications and frustrations very hard to deal with. Staying motivated is the greatest challenge during the early stages of such careers. I always like to say that obtaining a PhD is a real test for endurance and dedication and has rather little to do with one's intelligence or talent. Particularly, when it comes to PhD students, two most crucial questions always seem to arise during my mentoring experience:
- What did your typical day as a PhD student look like? How did you manage your time?
- How did you stay motivated?
I will attempt to answer these important questions in this article.
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| Oxford Matriculation: and the fun begins :D |
