The Ocean Before Us : Should you do a Phd?

I originally wrote this article to be shared on postgraduatestudentships to promote the annual PhD Funding Fair in London. Hopefully the advice is general enough to work as a standalone article, which is why I reproduce it here, -TNR

 

In the years spent working towards your PhD, your sense of self worth is put through the wringer, time and time again under the benevolent questioning of those around you. “What exactly is it you’re doing?” your family will ask, cautiously, to avoid an academic lecture. Over dinner, your date will nervously ask if “You’re still a student?”, thinly veiling their shock and bemusement. “Are you trying to avoid the real world a bit longer?” your friends will jest, as they begin to climb the ladder in their graduate careers.

The response to this questioning usually requires a bit of soul searching. Am I really doing original research or just jumping through the hoops put before me? Am I a researcher or a just a student? Do I really want to stay in academia? Why am I doing this?

Ball rolling Bees

I’m buzzed (sorry) to find out that a small segment I produced about bees learning novel behaviour from one another, for The Naked Scientists last February made it into their 2017 Science Roundup!

I interviewed Clint Perry at Queen Mary’s University to get the details of an experiment he helped conduct, in which bees learnt from demonstrations to roll balls into a ‘goal’ in return for sugar water. Cue awful puns, mercifully included in the final cut.

You can have a listen below, it’s a fascinating story.

https://www.thenakedscientists.com/articles/interviews/football-playing-bees

While I’m on a Bee Binge, I’ll also throw out a recommendation for a book, The Bees by Laline Paull, which apparently only marginally exaggerates just how intelligent they are.