1. Competition is Fierce
Ph.D. programs aren’t like bachelor’s or even master’s programs. Unlike in those programs, in a Ph.D. program, your tuition is waived, and you are paid a (very modest) “living” stipend. This means that each and every student; a program takes on represents a huge financial burden and risk. As such, programs will be looking to enroll only the most promising candidates. Simply having good grades isn’t enough.
Admissions committees look for relevant experience - internships, prior publications - things that indicate that the candidate already has one foot in the door of higher academic life and has what it takes to succeed therein, rather than being someone who is passively drifting down the academic pipeline. Which brings me to my next point…
2. Start Now
Accumulating the experience, you will need to make yourself stand out when the time comes to apply for grad school, and you won’t find the path to doing so outlined in any undergraduate degree program.
Instead, you will need to proactively search for opportunities to work with laboratories or professors to build your portfolio of work. In fact, I’d recommend that you identify what schools you’re interested in as early as possible in your undergraduate career, then reach out to the admissions departments of each of those schools and find out what they’re looking for in a candidate. Then, once you know, begin working immediately on becoming that person.
3. Check Your Ego and Temper Your Expectations
If you’re even considering a Ph.D., chances are you’ve done well academically up until now. Perhaps in your undergrad, you were among the exceptional. In your Ph.D., though, you’re just another student. The coursework is adjusted for the fact that everyone there is highly intelligent, and you will be pushed to your limits.
The amount of information you have to learn in a very short amount of time is absolutely staggering. Your course lecturers will be tenure-track professors who are doing this, not because teaching is their passion but because it’s a requirement for them by their department.
As such, many of them are disinterested and, frankly, not all that good at teaching. If undergrad was easy for you, you are in for quite the shock in grad school. You will need to be intimately familiar with the subject matter and become so very quickly. However, even once you’ve passed your courses, your difficulties are only beginning because…
4. Coursework is Just a (Small) Part of Getting a Ph.D.
In high school and college, your courses were everything. In a Ph.D. program, coursework is merely the preliminary - a crash-course knowledge base with which you are practically water-boarded. Your courses typically only last a year or two. After that, you dive into the work of completing your dissertation project, but not before…
5. You Have to Pass Your Qualifying Exam
Your qualifying exam is the final hurdle before you truly dive into your thesis project, and it demonstrates that you are ready to do so. It will require you to have completed your courses; to have picked an advisor (see next point); to have put together a thesis project, and then to articulate this project - its background, purpose, scope, and goals - to your thesis advisory committee.
Some programs will have you propose your project, while others have you come up with one from scratch as an exercise (to ensure you’re not just parroting your thesis advisor). This is most likely, unlike any presentation you’ve done before. In addition, you are proposing a project that will require 3-5 years to complete. It is no small undertaking, and you will need to spend no small amount of time preparing for it.
6. Choose Your Thesis Advisor Carefully
As I mentioned in the last point, at some point, you will need to choose a thesis advisor, also commonly referred to as a mentor. This person, for most intents and purposes, will be your boss for the remainder of your Ph.D. training. They will dictate your duties and oversee your work. Though you do have some limited protections afforded to you by your program, your success or failure is almost entirely determined by this person. As such, it is vital that you choose carefully. A good or bad mentor will mean the difference between a difficult Ph.D. experience and a nightmarish one.
7. Get Used to Presenting (a Lot)
Thesis advisory committee meetings. Departmental seminars. Journal clubs. Conferences. Lab meetings. Symposia. The list of events in which you will be required to present is overwhelming. You will need to become comfortable and proficient at communicating what you’re doing, why you’re doing it, what you’ve done so far, and what you intend to do next because you’re going to be doing it a lot.
8. Get Used to Criticism
Whether it be your mentor, your committee, other professors in your department, or even your peers, there will be no shortage of people telling you the shortcomings of your work. And when you’re putting your heart and soul into that project, it can feel like nothing you do is ever good enough. This is something you must adapt to. Unforgiving critiques are part and parcel of higher academia, and learning to take them in stride and use them to reveal your blind spots is essential to growing as a scholar.
9. Grad Student Life Post-Quals is Like Having a Full-Time Job (with Extra Steps)
I’ve mentioned already that grad school isn’t like an undergrad and that your advisor is like your boss. This is because being a grad student is, essentially, a job. You are paid a stipend, and you are expected to earn your keep. You may be required to help your professor grade papers or even teach courses for them.
You will almost certainly be required to help around the lab in a STEM Ph.D. in addition to working on your project. Most advisors will require you to be in the lab during regular business hours - no more choosing your schedule like in undergrad - though that does not, by any means, mean that your toil will be limited to those hours. It is exceedingly common for Ph.D. students to have to put in 50-60 hours or even more per week.
Unfortunately, it is not just your mentor whom you’ll need to satisfy. As a student, you will also be answerable to your program and to your committee, giving fairly frequent updates to both.
10. Have an Exit Strategy (Complete with Contingencies for When Things Go Wrong)
Getting your Ph.D. takes years, and the process often feels interminable. It is all too easy to lose your sense of direction in the endless daily grind. Moreover, your advisor may come to see you as a cheap source of labor - someone to grade papers or work a pipette, and you may find the goalposts for your completion being pushed further and further back.
To counteract this, it’s important to have a plan for completing your thesis and getting out. This is where your thesis advisory committee comes in. While it can feel nail-biting and exhausting constantly updating them, their job is simultaneous to keep you on track and also support you when you’ve finally reached a satisfactory end to your degree. Your plan should include fallbacks and alternative goals in case things don’t go according to plan (which they very frequently do not).
I’ve said it before, and I’ll say it again because it really cannot be overstated. Earning a Ph.D. is tough. Exhaustion, burnout, and dropout are common. The attrition rate for Ph.D. students is estimated to range from 20% to almost 50%. I personally knew six people who failed, for one reason or another, left my university without earning their Ph.D. while I was earning mine. I had to change my project midway through my training, essentially starting over entirely.
It is a grueling, soul-crushing process. It is not for most. However, for some. It is the only path to achieving their dreams. If you want to do research - if you want to have a career pushing into the unknown, finding answers to questions no one has been able to resolve before, enlarging the borders of human knowledge - then a Ph.D. is what you will need. The process will shape you. Change you! You will not be the same afterward. But if you can endure it, you will emerge stronger, sharper, and more resilient. If this is what you choose, keep these 10 things in mind as you navigate through the gauntlet that is life as a Ph.D. student.
