In a PhD (and as doctoral supervisors) we often face situations where we feel blocked, with no idea of how to get out or what to do next. In this post, the first of a series distilling wisdom from the latest round of “A Happy PhD” workshops, we look at a peer advice technique we have repeatedly use in the workshops to help students (and supervisors!) unblock. All you need is… a little help from a small group of people.

After a long hiatus for personal reasons, we are back in business! Continuing from our last post from 2021, here I highlight one of the blog’s big foci for this starting year: the “big PhD questions”. The post goes over what Google has to say about this (!) and asks for your ideas and opinions on what big questions about the doctorate we should investigate next at the “A Happy PhD” blog.

If you are reading this, chances are that you have already decided to do a PhD. Yet, you may know someone who is considering a doctoral degree (or you may be offering such a position as a supervisor to prospective students). This post is for them. In this new type of post, we will look at big questions facing any PhD student. Today, we analyze the question that precedes all the other big PhD questions: “should I do a PhD?”. Below, I offer a couple of quick, simple ways to look at this important life decision, and a list of 10 factors to consider when offered (or seeking) a PhD position.

What can we do, when we have to take a hard decision about the PhD (like changing supervisors or leaving doctoral studies altogether) but we don’t really know which way to go? In the continuation to last week’s post, we see how to go about the actual decision-making, to choose the option that has the best chances to satisfy us in the long run.

In the PhD (and beyond), we sometimes face a difficult situation, and we have to take a hard decision: do I leave my PhD? do I take an unrelated job to earn more money while I try to finish the PhD? do I seek a new supervisor that better supports me? do I accept the change of direction that my supervisor is suggesting? In this two-part post series, I will not give the answer to those hard questions, but rather provide a decision process that can help us find the option that is right for us, in our particular circumstances.