How to get a PhD by Phillips and Pugh

This book review is based on the third edition of "How to get a PhD"

"How to get a PhD" covers a wide range of aspects and is stuffed with helpful advice for starting doctoral researchers. All chapters contain an action summary at the end, which sums up to most important ideas of that chapter. Although this book is clearly written from the perspective of British universities, it can be read by anyone outside.

Here's an overview of what I found particularly useful in this book:


1. Chapter 4: How not to get a PhD

Be aware of the seven way of not getting a PhD:
- not wanting a PhD
- overestimating what is required
- underestimating what is required
- having a supervisor who des not know what is required
- losing contact with your supervisor
- not having a 'thesis' (i.e. position, argument) to maintain
- taking a new job before completing.

Most books contain great advice on how to work towards your doctoral degrees, or point out what pitfalls you might encounter. Pointing out directly which behavior will totally boycott you from getting your degree, is not so common. This books devotes an entire chapter to this topic, and it's very helpful to be aware of these danger signs.

2. Chapter 8: How to manage your supervisor

Be aware that you must accept the responsibility for managing the relationship between you and your supervisor. It is too important to be left t chance.

Great advice, which I learned over time to be true. I initially thought my supervisors would keep close track of what I am doing, and would come to me regularly asking about my progress. I noticed it's quite different.

3. Preparing for the viva

Here's a tried and tested way of revising the complete thesis and preparing for the via, both at the same time.
First you take a maximum of three sheets of feint-ruled A$ paper (try to manage ith two if you can). You draw a straight vertical line down the centre of each sheet. You now have to sets of about 35 lines, i.e. 70 half lines. Each half line represents one page of your thesis. Now you number each half line. One to 35 are the left hand half laine and 36-70 are the right hand half lines on the first sheet of paper.
Next you take your time, say about two weeks, to write on every half line the main idea contained on the corresponding page of your thesis.

Sounds like some of the best advice I've read about preparing for your defense, and I'll try to implement it when I graduate (in more than 2 years from now).

4. Chapter 11: How to supervise and examine

In connection with chapter 8, this chapter gives the reader more insight in the relationship between student and supervisor. This chapter is written from the point of view of the supervisor, and is definitely wroth reading for students too. I was inspired by this chapter in my way of supervising master's students.

Leechblock

My discovery of the week is Leechblock.
Last week, I was getting on the procrastination and pointless browsing path again (because I'm worried about a though deadline I just heard about), and I decided I needed a strong hand to get this under control again.

I've used blocksite in the past, to control my random facebooking. After having facebook and other distracting websites blocked from my office computer, I started boycotting myself. I started turning off the add-on, surf around for some time, and then turn it on again. Silly, isn't it?

Now I'm experimenting with Leechblock. This software has two options:
- allow certain websites for a previously defined amount of time during a day, and then block them
- set a timeframe during which you want to block certain websites.
The great thing is that you cannot change any settings while a block is active. You simply have to sit through it.

I've used the second option yesterday during 1h40mins to make some good progress on a writing task, and I've made the first option a standard feature allowing me 20 minutes of browsing to my most distracting websites a day.

After just a few days of using this software, I would say it is a great productivity tool.

Our lab on TV

That's our lab in which they are interviewing! And I'm briefly showing up at 1:29, in between the talks for the parents of the students.

Preparing a presentation without slides - the aftermath

Today I presented my research in the lab to the parents of the first year students. Talking for 15 minutes straight without slides and to a non-technical audience appeared to me a rather difficult task, but it turned out to be a really enjoyable experience.

Here's what really worked to keep the attention:

1. Point out objects

Even though the group was gathered around my specimen and I, I've been taking the opportunity of standing in the lab to show and point out as many aspects of my testing as possible. I could show the formwork, rebar cages, an undamaged specimen, the damaged specimen in the setup, the frame for the loading, the frame for my measurements, the cracks marked on the specimen, the thickness of the floor... I tried to keep it interactive by giving them some time to have a look through the holes which show the thickness of our strong floor and by inviting them to take a look at the bottom of the slab.

2. Compare with real life situations

I gave comparisons between the loading in our tests and the maximum load of a truck in the Netherlands, I pointed out the cost per square meter for replacing a bridge and told them how many tons of concrete have been used in these experiments. From the reaction on people's faces I could tell that turned out to be interesting information.

3. Keep it light and informative

Although one of the main rules is not to try to be funny, I thought I little joke and smile here and now was working quite well in this context.

4. Let your enthusiasm shine

If you love what you're doing, your enthusiasm will add a little extra to your talking, and it seems to be really appreciated.

Preparing a presentation without slides

On Tuesday I am giving a presentation. That is not breaking news at all, except for the fact that I just have to go and talk for 15 minutes without slides to a non-technical audience.

Here's how I prepared for it:

1. Ask for advice

I went to ask a more experienced staff member for advice, and I was lucky enough to get his preparation sheet of last year.
The useful hints I got were:
- Avoid jargon,
- Point out and show whatever you can to keep the audience's attention,
- Compare to examples and objects from everyday life.

2. What are the important questions to answer?

I tried to imagine what I would be thinking if I'd be walking into a factory or a lab totally unrelated to my field. What came to my mind are the following:
- First of all, where am I?
- Who is working here?
- What are they doing here?
- Why is this research necessary?
- What are these objects?
- How do they work? How do they measure?
- How much time does a test/ a step in the process take?
- What results are obtained so far? What have they learned from this?

3. Mindmap

The first thought I had was to use flash cards and keep these in my hands during the presentation. However, to avoid staring at my cards, I decided I want to go and speak out without any aid except all the material around me in the lab. To have an idea of what I am going to talk about, I sketched up a mindmap based on the questions I came up with previously. Then I started to organize the facts I want to talk about and the ones that I had from last year's presentation around these questions to structures my talk.

4. Practice

If 2 minutes of public speaking requires 1 hour of preparation, I am supposed to roughly spend a work day preparing my talk. I'm planning to go over this several times on Monday, and discuss it in the lab to see if it is accessible enough.

This is the first time I've laid out a presentation around a few basic questions, and a mindmap. I'm quite curious to see how this will work out. What I've learned by preparing this presentation so far, is how easy and effortless mindmapping can be to structure your thoughts to prepare for a presentation.

ASCE Structures Congress 2011 - paper and presentation

Last month, I presented a paper at the ASCE Structures Congress 2011.

The full paper is published in the conference proceedings, as well as online in the ASCE library.
The abstract of the paper is:

When assessing the capacity of existing reinforced concrete slab bridges under the increased traffic loads prescribed in the current codes, shear may become the critical failure mode. To better evaluate the shear capacity of reinforced concrete slab bridges, a series of experiments is carried out on continuous one‐way slabs loaded close to the support. Eight continuous slabs of 5m × 2,5m × 0,3m are tested. The loading position is taken at different a/d ratios. Six slabs with a standard concrete mixture and two slabs with a higher strength concrete are tested. The influence of the loading history, the shear span to depth ratio and the concrete compressive strength is discussed. Conclusions on the influence of these parameters on the one‐way shear capacity of reinforced concrete slabs are drawn.

You can also find the slides I used for my presentation here:

Experimental study of shear capacity of reinforced concrete slabs

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