day in the life of a math phd student

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A Day in the Life Series - PhD Student (Applied Mathematics)

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I’m responsible for…

As a PhD student, we have to research a particular area of mathematics with the intention of performing some novel research. As part of my PhD, it is required that I produce research papers, as well as yearly reports to monitor my progression. It is also expected that I present my work at seminars or conferences. Public engagement is something that is also encouraged throughout a PhD, such as running a stall at a science fair, or during lockdown I have been writing some scientific blog posts for our group website.

My typical day…

My typical day is far less interesting than it used to be, before the pandemic, as it mainly consists of sitting at a desk working on my computer.  The main tasks that keep me busy throughout the day are: reading academic papers, doing mathematics by hand, using Matlab, a mathematical computer software, to run simulations and having meetings over Zoom.  There is also usually a seminar to attend each day to give myself something different to think about.

The worst part of my job…

At the moment, like most jobs, the worst part is having to work from home. At the start of my PhD, I found that there was a very social atmosphere in the department, especially amongst the students. It’s been very hard to adapt to becoming isolated and working alone with no one around.

In terms of actual work, I would say the hardest part is having the patience to get something wrong over and over until eventually you get it right!

The best part of my job…

The opportunity to work at the forefront of a scientific field and collaborating with others with different scientific backgrounds exchanging ideas on a subject.

I love my job because…

I have always loved doing mathematics, so having the opportunity to study the subject full time as such an advanced level is a dream come true!

The feeling of making a breakthrough after many weeks/months of hard work is also very rewarding.

Advice to others… (What advice would you give to others who want a role like yours?)

To be a PhD student, you have to be willing to completely immerse yourself in a subject, so you must be sure it is going to be something that you enjoy (a lot!) to begin studying. Also, patience is key, the work you undertake is very difficult and it can take time to get your head around some ideas, so do not become disheartened if something does not come to you straight away.

I want to be remembered for…

Being a student who works hard, and is always there to offer a helping hand to anyone who might need it.

My Plan B… (If it wasn’t this job – what else would I be doing?)

I am not sure what job I would do outside of mathematical research as it is something that I enjoy very much and would like to do for a long time! I have always had a dream about opening my own little brewery though...

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The PhD student experience – What is it really like for PhDs?

Are you curious about what it’s really like to be a PhD student, navigating the world of academia and research?

In this article, we’ll dive deep into the lesser-known aspects of the PhD journey, from the profound impact of your supervisor to the competitive environment you’ll face.

Discover the truth about the importance of publishing papers and the realities of funding and job security in academia.

We’ll also give you a glimpse into the daily life of a PhD student, and explore the highs and lows of this challenging yet rewarding experience.

So, buckle up and join us as we uncover the secrets of the PhD student experience that no one else will tell you!

The little known-facts that you need to know about the PhD experience,

This is what no one else will tell you!

What does the daily life of a PhD student look like?

Embarking on a PhD journey can be a thrilling yet demanding experience, as a doctoral student is constantly immersed in:

• academic responsibilities,
• and professional development.

From the early morning, the life of a PhD student begins with checking emails, planning the day, and setting priorities.

A typical day usually involves conducting experiments or research in the laboratory, analyzing data, and reading scientific literature to stay up-to-date with their field.

PhD students often participate in regular meetings with their supervisors, who provide guidance and advice on their research projects.

These meetings are crucial for maintaining momentum and ensuring a productive working relationship.

A typical daily schedule for a PhD student might look like this:

7:00 AM – Wake up, morning routine, breakfast

7:45 AM – Check emails, plan the day, and set priorities

8:30 AM – Arrive at the laboratory, set up experiments or research tasks

9:30 AM – Attend a class or seminar (if applicable)

11:00 AM – Conduct experiments or research in the laboratory

12:30 PM – Lunch break, socialize with fellow graduate students

1:30 PM – Analyze data and read scientific literature relevant to the research project

3:00 PM – Meeting with supervisor to discuss research progress and receive guidance

4:30 PM – Continue working on experiments, data analysis, or literature review

6:00 PM – Dinner break

8:00 PM – Draft or edit thesis, work on conference presentations or publications

10:00 PM – Wind down and engage in a hobby or leisure activity for mental health and work-life balance

11:00 PM – Bedtime routine, sleep

In addition to their primary research, many PhD students assist and mentor undergraduate students, contributing to a diverse and dynamic academic community.

Balancing the demands of coursework, research projects, and administrative responsibilities can make for long working hours, which is why it’s important for doctoral students to maintain their mental health and work-life balance.

Attending conferences, participating in social events, and engaging in professional development opportunities are important aspects of the PhD experience.

Given the commitment and dedication required, full-time PhD students often rely on funded positions to support their education and living expenses.

Despite the inherent difficulties, the experience equips students with a range of new skills and expertise, setting them on a path to contribute significantly to academia and the world beyond.

How stressful is being a PhD student?

Being a PhD student can be quite stressful due to the unique challenges and demands of the program.

It varies from person to person and the supervisor will have a huge impact on how stressful a PhD will be for a student.

Here is a case study of the highs and lows of a PhD from a PhDs student’s perspective:

This PhD student experienced frustration with experiments not working or yielding results, leading to feelings of imposter syndrome and demotivation. A lack of progress was a significant source of stress during this time, as well as comparing oneself to peers who seemed to be achieving more success.

However, there were also numerous highlights throughout the PhD experience. Attending conferences and presenting research offered opportunities to gain feedback, collaborate with others, and even travel. Engaging in scientific discussions and exploring the significance of one’s work provided a sense of purpose and satisfaction.

Furthermore, working with cutting-edge equipment, such as advanced microscopes, allowed the student to appreciate the unique and privileged nature of their research.

The pressure to produce significant contributions to one’s field and the uncertainty of achieving results within a limited time frame can induce anxiety.

For instance, many students find themselves constantly juggling various responsibilities, such as conducting experiments, analysing data, attending meetings with their supervisor, and writing their thesis or papers.

Aside from academic pressure, managing work-life balance can be difficult as well. It’s not uncommon for PhD students to work long hours, often sacrificing personal time and relationships.

The lack of a structured schedule and the need for self-motivation can add to the stress and the competitive environment in academia and the constant pursuit of funding can further exacerbate stress levels.

PhD student workloads and holidays

The life of a PhD student is often characterized by heavy workloads and limited opportunities for holidays.

In a typical PhD program, students juggle numerous responsibilities, including research projects, coursework, and professional development activities, such as attending conferences and training.

This is particularly true for funded PhD students, who are expected to adhere to strict timelines set by their supervisors and the university’s academic calendar.

In the science field, the workload can be even more demanding due to the nature of research, which often involves conducting experiments that can take months or years to complete.

This commitment means that even during holidays, PhD students may feel the need to work in order to meet deadlines, leading to burnout and stress.

Later Stage PhD ( Doctorate Candidates )

When PhD students reach the later stages of their doctorate program, they become PhDs preparing to complete their research project and thesis.

This stage comes with an intense academic workload, with high demand for researcher-level skills and scientific knowledge.

A typical day for a PhD at this stage involves conducting research, analysing data, and editing their findings to complete their thesis.

In my experience it is WRITING, WRITING and more WRITING…with a touch of editing.

There are deadlines to meet, and students may face pressure, but the reward of completing a doctorate degree is worth it.

At this point, a PhD is expected to demonstrate their ability to conduct independent research and contribute to their field of study.

The latter stages of the doctorate program offer a rigorous and rewarding challenge for students who want to pursue a career in science, education, and research.

Wrapping up – PhD and Doctoral Student experience

The PhD student experience is a complex and multifaceted journey that offers a unique blend of challenges and triumphs.

As we have explored in this blog, the road to obtaining a PhD is filled with personal growth, professional development, and numerous hurdles to overcome.

But, for those who persevere, the rewards can be immense, leading to a sense of accomplishment, increased expertise, and the potential to make a significant impact in their chosen field.

In navigating this adventure, it is essential for PhD students to maintain a healthy work-life balance and develop strong support networks to help them manage stress and maintain motivation.

The journey may be demanding, but with the right mindset and guidance, the experience can be truly transformative.

Dr Andrew Stapleton has a Masters and PhD in Chemistry from the UK and Australia. He has many years of research experience and has worked as a Postdoctoral Fellow and Associate at a number of Universities. Although having secured funding for his own research, he left academia to help others with his YouTube channel all about the inner workings of academia and how to make it work for you.

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What is the life of a phd student really like, published by steve tippins on june 9, 2020 june 9, 2020.

Last Updated on: 2nd February 2024, 05:11 am

Life of a PhD student? Hell. That about sums it up.

Okay, that’s not a very satisfying answer. Nor is it completely true. Life as a PhD student doesn’t always feel like hell. It does sometimes, but it’s also an exhilarating and rewarding time to explore your area of interest and grow into a true scholar. So what does the life of a PhD student really look like?

The life of a PhD student is somewhat varied depending on the field you’re going into. Generally speaking, no matter what program you’re in, it has two phases: coursework and dissertation.

Coursework Phase

Doctoral-level are courses that are a lot harder than undergraduate or even Master’s courses , but they are similar in structure: there’s a syllabus, due dates, other students in the class, etc. There are definitive semesters, quarters, or terms. In between terms, there’s really not much work to do. 

Of course, there are different expectations for PhD students than for undergrads. They are held to a far more rigorous standard in the work that they do. Class sizes are much smaller, and students are expected to participate in nuanced discussions. There is no sliding by unnoticed in a PhD program.

All that said, the coursework phase of the life of a PhD student is not altogether different than their previous educational experience, besides being more rigorous. It’s like school on steroids. 

Depending on the school, there may be a transition from classwork: comprehensive exams. This is basically, “study everything you’ve learned so that you can be ready for any question.” 

Dissertation Phase

The dissertation phase is a world in which there’s no syllabus, no classmates, and no real structure. You have your Chairperson and Committee to keep happy, but they’re not pushing you forward or expecting you to turn things in by a certain date. They’re just waiting for you to do what you have to do. 

Once you get to the dissertation stage, the concept of semesters and quarters goes away, and you’re working on your topic all the time.

Over 50% of doctoral candidates don’t finish their dissertations.

Many students find that not having due dates can make it difficult to work efficiently and make real progress on their dissertation . I speak more about how to effectively navigate this later on in this article.

I f you go into a program that has a large number of doctoral students, you’ll still be alone when you get to the dissertation stage, but you’ll have other people a similar stage. If you’re in a smaller program (for example, I was the only person in my PhD program), you may be all alone during the dissertation phase.

You’ll have to be able to move from the structured format of classes to the dissertation stage, where there’s very little structure and it can be lonely.

How Many Hours do PhD Students Work?

How many hours do PhD students work? Many PhD students have about 40 hours a week of reading and classwork, plus around 20 hours a week of assistantship or lab time. And that’s minimum. You may also be teaching while you’re doing your dissertation. I had two classes a semester, which ended up being 6 hours a week of class time, plus preparation and grading.   It’s easy to have a 60-80 hour week. In the life of a PhD student, the concept of “weekends” does not exist.

When you get to your dissertation, it’s easy to say “Oh, thank god I don’t have to do that anymore” and just stop. But don’t. You’ll need to put in the same hours on your dissertation if you want to finish within a reasonable timeframe (unless you’re deliberately making a choice to finish over a longer period of time).

Life of a PhD Student

Here, I’ll describe some of the common themes of the life of a PhD student, regardless of discipline. If you’re not yet enrolled in a PhD program, I highly recommend reading this to get an idea of the realities of what doctoral-level work looks like. If you’re already living the life of a PhD student, you will find some indispensable hints and advice for getting through with your mental health intact.

Being a Doctoral Student Is Not Like Being an Undergrad

Life as a PhD student is not the same as life as an undergrad. You’re there for the academic experience, not for anything else. Don’t expect to be able to join clubs and have time to socialize or go to football games. You may even find yourself feeling jealous of undergrads. 

But you’re there for a completely different purpose. You are the reason that the library is open twenty-four hours a day, seven days a week. You are training to join the ranks of the world’s elite minds. 

You Can’t “Just Get By”

On the same note, the academic standards to which you’ll have to hold yourself change. As an undergraduate, you can get by easily with “what do I need to know,” and as a PhD student you ask, “what more can I learn?”

If you have the mentality of asking “what do I need to get by?” you shouldn’t be in a doctoral program. Because if you’re in a doctoral program, you’re going to end up as an expert. If your specific topic comes up in important policy decisions, you may be asked to be on an advisory panel. At some point, you will probably be asked to be an expert somewhere, and the advice you give will influence people’s lives. Society depends on you doing a good job in order to function well.

Doctoral programs are rigorous for a reason: only those who have a true passion and care for their subject area are afforded the power that a doctorate gives.

Writing a Dissertation Takes Over Your Life

Writing a dissertation is an immersive experience. It’s so much a part of the life of a PhD student that it’s hard to differentiate between when you’re working and not working. 

You also have to do things besides actually writing, and these things sometimes take a frustratingly long time. For example, making calls to institutions you are gathering data from, figuring out how to access or use software programs, or transcribing interviews. 

It doesn’t feel like you’re making progress on your dissertation because you haven’t written anything, so it can be easy to get discouraged. It’s important to account for the time spent doing this kind of thing so that you don’t feel like you’re failing when you have to spend entire days on it rather than writing.

I had a friend who spent an entire weekend trying to de-bug a program, and the problem ended up being a zero that had been replaced by an O. That kind of stuff happens all the time, and it’s often when students quit. Account for this ahead of time so that it’s just part of the deal.

It is hard to communicate to friends and family members about what you’re going through in this process. They may expect you to be the same person you were before you entered the program and have the same flexibility. This can put a lot of pressure on friendships and relationships.  

You see all these other people who seem like they’re doing amazing things. Going on vacation, having children, advancing their careers. It may feel like you’re missing out. The life of a PhD student is also extremely isolating. Your family may not understand what you’re going through. It’s important to take care of your mental and emotional health so that this doesn’t lead you to drop out.

No Time for Anything

Those people who go into a doctoral program and continue a job and have families have to understand that they’re going to have very little time for anything other than those three things during the program. There is often not even enough time for all three of those. Understand that your faculty will have expectations of you and rarely considers outside commitments or desires when evaluating whether you’ve met those expectations.

Much of the life of a PhD student is actually deferring life–or at least all of the facets of life outside of academia. It means following everybody else’s requirements until you graduate. 

Revisions, Revisions, Revisions

Being a PhD student means constant revising. That’s one of the reasons that people quit, because they don’t realize how much revising will be necessary. When students get a draft of their proposal back for revisions a fifth time, many consider that a failure, but that’s simply the nature of writing a dissertation.

People get angry because they think they’re failing or they think that professors are being hard on them. But having to do multiple revisions is the norm. You’re learning a new language (academic writing), and you’re conducting an extremely rigorous project.

In classes, professors may let things slide. But any professor worth their salt won’t let things slide in your dissertation. It’s a good place for a perfectionist.

Here are some common reasons why students struggle with the type of academic writing required in a dissertation:

• You feel like you’re repeating yourself a lot
• You have to make your argument very clear and slow
• You can’t assume any knowledge
• You have to be extraordinarily specific
• You have to be extremely consistent

A Warning for Doctoral Students

There are stories of faculty members who take advantage of doctoral students to pick up laundry, babysit children, or worse. However power can be abused, some people in positions of power will try to do it. While hopefully there has been enough conversation about this that it is declining, it is something to be aware of. Listen to other people and be careful. 

The academic system is set up for an uneven balance of power–even before you account for our societal power dynamics of gender and race.

While there is a worthy tradition of “paying your dues” in academia, this means paying your dues to the profession–through teaching, learning, and research–not paying dues to members of the profession.

All this said, there are times when it isn’t inappropriate for faculty members may ask you to do things outside of the realm of academia (you can feel free to accept or decline as you wish). When I was in my graduate program a faculty member asked if I could help him move one weekend. I helped him for an hour and a half, and he gave me $100. 

He was trying to be nice to me, and he certainly didn’t take advantage of the power dynamic. However, I was working as an assistant on a research project and getting paid $12/hr, and I jokingly chided him for paying me more for my brawn than my brains.

Final Thoughts

The life of a PhD student is not easy, but it is rewarding. Time and time again, I’ve seen the difference between students who complete their doctoral programs and those who don’t is whether they’re able to get enough support.

That’s why I started offering Dissertation Coaching Services . I help PhD students get through the dissertation phase of their doctoral programs, successfully defend them, and graduate with their degrees.

If you are interested in receiving support from a Dissertation Chair through weekly coaching sessions, feedback on your work, and accountability tools, book a free 30-minute consultation . As of this writing, I am nearing capacity, so please do so soon if you would like to participate.

Steve Tippins

Steve Tippins, PhD, has thrived in academia for over thirty years. He continues to love teaching in addition to coaching recent PhD graduates as well as students writing their dissertations. Learn more about his dissertation coaching and career coaching services. Book a Free Consultation with Steve Tippins

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A day in the life of a PhD student

A Doctor of Philosophy (PhD) is a momentous challenge that is exhilarating, stressful, and highly rewarding. To start this article, I will offer just a brief background of what a PhD is, my own research area, and what a ‘day in the life’ of a PhD student (i.e. me) looks like!

A PhD in Australia typically runs between 3 and 6 years, though there is increasing pressure from universities to ensure PhD students finish at the three-year mark, or only a little later. The days of PhD students lasting for six to seven years are long gone, as funding pressure means that universities need to get PhD students graduated and producing papers for the university. Typically, a PhD has three major milestones that you must pass in order to keep progressing in the degree:

• A confirmation
• A mid-term review
• A final review

These occur, respectively, in years one, two, and three. PhD candidates will typically get two attempts to get past these milestones, which consist of a paper/chapter submission to a university-appointed panel and a presentation, and if they fail on the second attempt, they usually will have their PhD terminated. Most PhDs can be taken without scholarship (i.e. without payment), though they are usually at no direct cost to the student (speaking of domestic students here). Sometimes scholarships will be available, and they usually range from $18,000 to $27,000 a year (non-taxed).

I am currently doing a PhD in political economy and feminist studies, where my project investigates the impact of International Monetary Fund and World Bank-led economic programs on women’s political and economic participation in conflict/post-conflict, with my case study being Ukraine. I actually had no prior experience in political economy or feminist studies, and I was lucky enough to be offered the opportunity through a previous research supervisor who was indirectly related to my current PhD project. My honours thesis (it is generally a pre-requisite that you have a first-class honours or a Master’s thesis) was actually in neuroscience, and most of my research experience prior to my PhD had been in medical/surgical research and legal research. However, the experience of my PhD, which included a huge and very stressful initial learning curve, has been absolutely fantastic so far, and has been one of the most personally transformative and empowering undertakings that I have ever entered into!

My ‘regular’ day is hard to pin down… as every day and week is incredibly varied! However, I will try to paint a bit of a picture for you.

• I typically try to get to university between 8-9AM in the morning, where I will proceed to set up my study space in my office (we share offices with other PhD students, which just means I have my own desk), and then study between 30 minutes and one hour of Arabic (extra-curricular language studies!).
• After that, I will use the rest of the morning to complete my PhD readings, which could be highly variable. For example, right at this moment I am interested in the impact of gas reforms on women in Ukraine, as I am attempting to write a chapter about the subject, and thus my readings are generally geared around the technical aspects of pipelines in Eastern Europe, the reform process since the fall of the Soviet Union in Ukraine as it relates to gas, and what it has meant for the population.
• After pouring over this literature for the morning, I will take a break for lunch where I might also watch a lecture of interest in political philosophy or the like.
• Then, I will go for a walk to the library on campus, where I will return some books and get some more (I love the library, and this is one of my favourite parts of the day!). I will then go back to my office, where I will then try to set aside an hour or two to write a bit of my chapter.
• Then, in the afternoon, my research team might be hosting an academic or another visiting person who will deliver a seminar, which I will attend; or alternatively, my supervisors might want to see me for a meeting to check in on my progress!
• Finally, I might also attend a lecture delivered by one of my research supervisors in the afternoon. At the end of the day, I will generally try to read a bit more around my particular area of interest to close out the day, before I leave at around 5 or 6PM.

To me, completing a PhD has been by far the most rewarding thing that I have done in my life (I am a medical doctor and law graduate too!). I have been very lucky in having the opportunity to undertake a PhD, and I have gone through a significant amount of personal development and learning and have had my entire world view shaped by my readings and research throughout my studies. My day may seem somewhat mundane to the outside viewer, but having the opportunity to read great literature, (try to!) write something that might make an impact in the world, and be tutored by world experts in their field, is something I would recommend you all seize with both your hands if you are lucky enough to get the chance!

Elliot DE is a current PhD Candidate, Medical Doctor & Law Graduate. He is also a Humanities Tutor at GradReady Preparation Courses .

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The Graduate Program

The Department of Mathematics offers Ph.D. programs in Mathematics and Applied Mathematics. The department also supports students in the  Graduate Group in Logic and the Methodology of Science , an interdisciplinary doctoral program shared between the departments of Philosophy and Mathematics. At this time, we no longer offer a terminal Master's degree program.

To review the policies and procedures of the Graduate Program, please refer to our  Graduate Student Handbook .

Please note: Some Mathematics Advising Services have been moved to virtual platforms. You can find the latest information on UC Berkeley’s prevention and response efforts  related to COVID-19 here.

Graduate Program Contacts 

The Graduate Program is overseen by the Departmental Vice Chair for Graduate Affairs and the Graduate Student Affairs Officers. 

• Professor Tom Scanlon, Vice Chair for Graduate Affairs
• Clay Calder, Graduate Student Affairs Officer
• Christian Natividad, Graduate Student Affairs Officer 
• Vicky Lee, Director of Student Services

For Questions Regarding Math Graduate Admissions: Please see the Admissions web page  here . After reviewing the admissions website, if you have further questions please email [email protected] .

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Stem student stories from king's college london, a day in the life of a mathematics student.

January 31, 2020 Lucy Emanuel A day in the life , Mathematics 2

Life at King’s as a Mathematics student is entirely what you make of it! You are encouraged to be independent in your studies, and there are lots of resources and opportunities to make the most out of your degree.

Rise and shine

I normally start my day at 8am (apart from when I have the dreaded 9am lectures!) by having a nice hot shower, making me feel fresh and motivated to have a productive day. This is followed by a quick prayer and 10 minute meditation session to feel focused and alert.

Lectures, tutorials and skill sessions

During the week, I have lectures, tutorials and skill sessions. Each of these serve a different purpose. Lectures are to understand concepts, skill sessions are to apply concepts to questions and tutorials are to practice and discuss problems. My favourite part of the week are the skills sessions, because I find watching how an abstract concept materialises to solve a complex equation fascinating!

Every module requires a fair amount of self study . Some concepts can take several tries to understand and practice is  absolutely essential in Mathematics. So, I head to the many study spaces around campus for a couple of hours. This ranges from 1-2 hours on a regular day to 3-4 hours around exams. I use the 25-5 study technique, where I study for 25 minutes and then treat myself to a 5 minute break! My favourite study space is the K4 Computer Lab, because it’s spacious and airy with large windows letting in natural light. I’m from India, so I particularly enjoy the occasional L ondon  sunshine when I’m studying! 

Time to relax

I normally like to leave my evenings free (apart from exam periods) to prevent a burn out – doing all that maths through the day can really take a toll on you. Being a big movie buff, I like to watch a Bollywood movie, meet some friends for dinner or do some society work – basically anything which isn’t related to numbers! This is an important part of the day as it helps me relax and unwind so that my brain is ready for hard work the next day. 

Read more…

Find out why Puja decided to study Mathematics

Check out my other blog post on 5 reasons why I love Mathematics

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A Day in the Life of a Successful PhD Student (You Need To Know)

If you are thinking about starting a PhD, you may be wondering what a PhD student do es all day . This isn’t really a career move that many people talk about. Most people when they finish undergraduate move on to a career in their field and many programs at colleges and universities are geared towards preparing students for that life step. Often grad school is talked about in an “abstract” way and students are given the sense that they are more or less continuing on as a student and guided through the process by the university. This is partially true for a Masters degree, but far less true for a PhD. PhD programs, as has been discussed elsewhere in this blog, are much more free form after the coursework and comps phase and the direction depend s greatly on the scope and direction of your research project. This means the daily routine of a PhD student can vary widely depending on their project and also on what stage they are in during their PhD. Do you want to take a quiz to find out if a PhD is for you? (It was crowd-sourced from our community of PhDs.

This post is going to explore the more or less typical da ily (or recurring) activities in the life of PhD students in the beginning of the PhD post comps and in the later stage s of a PhD edging towards thesis submission . There is no set daily routine for most PhD students and their days often vary, but their days usually focus around the same set of activities. The dai ly routine of a PhD student changes over the course of their PhD , as the demands and expectations change . Daily routines are also different depending on if a PhD student is full or part time. The daily life discussed here is more applicable to a full time PhD student. The topics and activities discussed below may not occur everyday, but they are the typical activities of PhD students. To understand the daily life of a PhD it is best to view it as almost an apprenticeship in academia. Much of the daily work and expectations of a PhD student is similar to th ose of a professor, but often on a smaller scale.

Professors generally split their time between research (40%-100%) , teaching (20%-80%) , and administrative duties (20%-80%) . PhD students do the same only with a different split, much more of their time is allocated to research, but they often have teaching and administrative duties as well. The focus of their daily routine can also change depending on the needs of the given day and program. For example, PhD students will spend more time on teaching related tasks, if they are a Teaching Assistant, during midterms and finals, but in the summer, they may spend most of their time on research.

Are you a current PhD student, professor, or knowledgeable potential PhD student? We can really use your help! Can you add your institution to this crowd-sourced PhD Program index? It will greatly help future PhD students.

Based on the polls on the R3ciprocity YouTube channel, the modal breakdown of a PhD’s day is the following:

• 3-4 hours writing.
• 0-2 hours reading.
• 0-2 hours analyzing data.

I used to think that PhD Programs were inexpensive, until I learnt about the true costs of PhD Programs. Check out this post on the average PhD Program cost.

Full-disclosure: This post was written by an anonymous PhD student so they can speak freely, but based on this video:

https://youtu.be/bHfahwjtsOE Video can’t be loaded because JavaScript is disabled: What Does A PhD Student Do All Day (In Business Admin)? (https://youtu.be/bHfahwjtsOE)

Beginning Stages of a PhD Post Comps

So, you passed your coursework and comps with flying colors, and you are ready to finally dig into your project. On a typical day getting into this project is now your focus , so what does that entail?

If you want to learn more about comprehensive exams, here is a good video:

https://youtu.be/phC1puj52eA Video can’t be loaded because JavaScript is disabled: 5 Simple Tips For Doing Well On Your Grad School Comprehensive Exams ( What To Expect During Comps ) (https://youtu.be/phC1puj52eA)

Reading – S o Much R eading

It is important to understand the current state of your field before getting heavily into your own research . Y our overall goal as a PhD student is to make a unique contribution to your field through your research . In order to do that you need to know where everything stands in your field. The typical early stage PhD student spends a lot of time reading academic articles and  books. They are synthesizing the current state of their field and determining what the gaps are and how their own research can fill them. During the early days of my PhD, I spent entire days reading, highlighting, and taking notes in order to gain a full picture of the current research field . Much of my first year post comps was allocated to making sure I was up on all the latest research and not duplicating anyone else’s project.

Here is a great blog post about what PhD classes are like and the size of the classes.

Also, you might find this blog post on how PhD students are evaluated very useful.

Data Collection

The typical early stage PhD spends time collecting data. Depending on the field your data collection c an vary widely. Data collection might mean conducting interviews, experimenting in a lab, mining large open source datasets, or digging into an archive for documents. Whatever your data is, this is the time it is usually collected, and you start examining it for preliminary results, patterns, unexpected outcomes, etc. Data makes up the base of your project whatever it is, so the early stages is when data is collected and organized .

You absolutely have to check out this blog post of all of the best software that you need as a PhD. The answers were crowd-sourced from 100s of PhDs – you will love it!

During the early stages of a PhD writing takes a back seat to reading and data collection. It is still an important component of a PhD’s day, and it is useful to develop regular writing habits early, but more of the day will be dedicated to other activities. Writing at this stage in the PhD usually consists of very focused assignments, plans, and synthesizing your reading and research. For instance my first piece of written work after comps was a formal project proposal in which I stated my preliminary thesis, wrote a historiography of my proposed subject, displayed some of the gaps in the current research my project could fill, and of course an extensive bibliography of works I would utilize in my coming research. Other types of writing in this stage are research plans, formulating hypothesis, literature reviews, and the occasional conference paper. At this stage writing is more about focusing your reading and setting the direction of your research rather than producing “write-ups” with your findings. At this stage, you will really need some feedback on your writing (this is when a community-based writing software like R3ciprocity comes in handy).

Teaching Assistant or Research Assistant Duties

Many PhD students take on Teaching Assistantships (TA) or Research Assistantships (RA) at their universities. TA s assist a professor at their university teaching a specific course. They may guest lecture occasionally, but they often do not teach the classes themselves. TA duties can include facilitating student seminars, gu e st lecturing, holding office hours to help students with the class, and grading exams and essays. Grading is usually the main duty of a TA so PhD students with TA duties will find themselves busiest with these tasks around midterms and finals.

R As assist a professor with their often already established and ongoing research project. RA duties are directed by the professor for whom you are working and can include helping with many stages of the research project such as collecting data, transcribing information, and proofreading written works. RAships can vary in length and intensity depending on the needs of the professor and the project.

Read this blog post to learn the real length of time to get a PhD.

Here is some more detailed information about RAs in this video:

https://youtu.be/3FVq9PsBpbY Video can’t be loaded because JavaScript is disabled: Research Assistants: Duties And Responsibilities At A Top University – Just FUNDING Your Studies? (https://youtu.be/3FVq9PsBpbY)

University Service or University Involvement

University S ervice is often a requirement for professors, but more of an option for PhD students . H owever, many PhD students choose to get involved in the university in some way as the university is their workplace and their community. There are a variety of ways that PhD students can get involved at their university such as becoming a board member of thei r graduate student association or participating in peer help groups on campus. PhD students often either volunteer or are nominated by their department to represent graduate students and their needs to larger department or university committees. For example, I was briefly the graduate student representative at department meetings. I was responsible for bringing the concerns or issues of graduate students to the department. University S ervice for PhD students is often geared towards advocating for the needs of graduate students and providing a sense of community for them at the university. This is again not a mandatory requirement, but if you are interested in a career in academia it is a good idea to become acquainted with the needs of University Service.

What is the average PhD Program acceptance rate? It is soo difficult to find out information on this, but check out our results from this poll. The results are so curious!

Special Events

Many PhDs also attend special events periodically such as on campus speakers series . These types of events are sometimes required by universities or departments . Other special events include conferences and workshops . At this early stage PhD students may have something to present at conferences, but there are also a variety of conferences that PhD attend for networking reasons. Most fields have large yearly international conferences and early stage PhD students will sometimes attend those to get a sense of the field, the quality of research, and to network with others. There are also many skill building workshops that PhDs can attend both at conferences and independently as their own events. For example, there are several skill building workshops in the field of Digital Humanities every summer that PhDs can often get scholarships to attend and learn new skills such as programming or digital story telling. These types of events enhance a PhD student’s skill set and allow them to further their research.

Later Stage PhD ( Doctorate Candidates ) 

At some point during the PhD, the balance shifts from learning and synthesis to writing and creating your own research.  You become the captain of your ship. When this happens the typical daily routine of a PhD student also shifts and the priorities and the demands on their time change.

At this point, you will feel like your are floundering, which is why I am trying to build the online writing accountability software. You need to check out this post to learn how you can join!

Writing is probably one of the biggest changes from early to late stage PhD. Now you have read enough and gathered all your data and have started to write your dissertation. Writing is now a much bigger chunk of your day and depending on the nearness of your deadline, it could be your whole day. When writing your dissertation your writing objective s shift . Y ou are no longer concerned with synthesizing information that has come before you, but rather you are now focused on analysis and articulating the results of your own research (with reference to other research still of course). Much of your time is centered on producing your research to disseminate to your field. This also means that in addition to writing your dissertation, you may also be writing articles and conferences papers to share your brilliant ideas and original research . You might like this blog post about how to prevent depression when writing your dissertation – it provides great details into the writing process.

I did a poll on the R3ciprocity YouTube community in August, 2021 on how much time researchers spend writing N=109). I was not surprised with these results. The modal time spent writing was 3-4 hours a day. 

Despite the shift to much more writing focused than reading focused days, there is still always some reading to do. New research comes out all the time, and it is best to stay on top of that to keep your own research competitive. Furthermore, your dissertation may take a turn you did not originally expect and so you need to read up on a topic in order to understand your results. For instance, my own research on late medieval Europe took a turn and I had to spend a few days reading up on what constituted treason in late medieval Europe in order to understand the ramifications of a political murder. So, there is always going to be reading to do, but this will become a much smaller part of your everyday.

Want to know the questions you should never ask during your PhD? Check out this pretty helpful blog post.

Later in the PhD process, data collection also becomes a much smaller portion of your time. Most of the heavy data collection is done in the early stages and while you will often revisit your data, likely large collections of it are not going to be repeated at this stage. However, you may have to collect some smaller sets of data, particularly again if your research has taken an unexpected turn. For instance, I had to revisit the archives to find a separate set of historical documents when my research took an unexpected turn. Unexpected turns happen in research projects so if you are in the late stages of your PhD and something does come up that you need to gather a little bit of data on that is not unusual.

Want to learn how to analyze data from a survey? Check out this comprehensive post.

I did a poll on the R3ciprocity YouTube community in August, 2021 on how much time researchers spend analyzing data. Here are the results. Out of 89 PhDs, the modal number of hours that PhDs spend time analyzing data is 0-2 hours per day. Surprisingly, some PhDs spend more than 9 hours a day analyzing data. This variance is likely due to the stage at which their research project is in.

TA/RA/Adjunct duties

Many PhD students continue to have TA and RA duties throughout their PhDs. However, later stage PhD students sometimes also take on Adjunct Professor roles at their own or nearby universities. This means they will teach a class or two by themselves. They will do everything that needs to be done for that class from syllabus preparation to lecture writing to marking the assignments. This additional responsibility can prove challenging because teaching takes up a lot of time particularly when teaching a class you have not taught before. Designing and implementing a class is a lot of work and it continues to be a lot of work as the semester progresses. I have had particularly difficult lectures take all day to write. A lot of PhD students underestimate how much time preparing and teaching a class takes since their TA duties did not consume a huge amount of time. If you go the adjunct route be prepared for it to put a huge time demand on your day.

If you are looking for great gifts to give PhD students, you have to read this post!

The R3ciprocity Project started out as a side-project, where David Maslach created an App to help others get feedback on their work (r3ciprocity.com – it is seriously inexpensive and easy to use. You have to try it!) , but it is beginning to grow into a real movement. Check out the YouTube channel , or some of these posts if you want to understand more:

Professional Service

In addition to University Service, some PhD students in their later stage also begin to take on what is known as Professional Service. Like University Service, Professional Service is an activity that in some way serves the greater academic community, usually in some way related to your field. This again can be a variety of things. For instance, many PhD students become involved in their professional organizations as graduate representatives. PhD students also can become involved in the editorial committees of academic journals. They may serve on committees for the advancement of their field or organize conferences. Again, like University Service, these positions are often not huge parts of their everyday routine, but they are again some of the expectations they must meet.

In the later stages of a PhD, it is more common for PhD students to present at conferences. They now have results and a thesis to advance so they apply to and present to their wider community at conferences. Conferences are also great places to stay up on current research and to network. PhD students may also find themselves presenting their research at their university showcases or in public lectures. Late stage PhD students still attend public lectures and workshops, but the emphasis begins to shift to presenting their own research instead of listening to someone else’s research .

These are the activities that make up the typical day of your average PhD student. The responsibilities do ebb and flow with the needs of the day. If you decide to start a PhD be prepared to spend a lot of time reading, writing, thinking, and working with your larger university community. You will need to get good at time management and scheduling in order to get it all done, but it is possible and a very rewarding experience.

This is all part of the r3ciprocity project, where the goal is simple: We are real people helping other people in academia. Academia is hard. We need to share our stories. Be real. Be nice. Help others. Science benefits.

The r3ciprocity project started out as a side-project, where David Maslach created an App to help others get feedback on their work, but it is beginning to grow into a real movement. Check out the YouTube Channel , or some of these posts if you want to understand more:

• Read more about PhD problems and solutions.
• How to deal with self-doubts as a PhD.
• The best tips on the internet on meeting with your (potential) graduate advisor.
• Did you benefit from this post? Do you know of anyone at all that could use feedback on their writing or editing of their documents? I would be so grateful if you read this post on how to get feedback on your writing using R3ciprocity.com or let others know about the R3ciprocity Project. THANK YOU in advance! You are the bees knees.

R3ciprocity_Team

Recent Posts

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The Surprising Lesson of Going It Alone When I launched the R3ciprocity Project, I anticipated an outpouring of support from various groups like scientists, researchers, universities, and...

Navigating Academia As A Parent Or Caregiver: The Dual Challenge of PhDs and Parenthood

PhD students and highly-educated individuals face a unique set of challenges. Among these, balancing the rigorous demands of academic life with personal responsibilities, such as single parenthood or...

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Search the site, search suggestions, a day in the life of a harvard student.

When people ask me about what it’s like to be a Harvard student, it’s hard to pinpoint any one thing to talk about.

I might talk about the classes I take, the major I’m in, the friends I have, or the clubs I do. I might talk about my dorm or the cafe that I like to study at or the gym that I go to far less often than I should. What I don’t get to talk about, when having those conversations, is what a more mundane day looks like as a Harvard student. After all, it’s not every day that I’m running back and forth to club meetings or grinding for hours on a paper in the library! Here’s a tribute to one of my simpler days as a Harvard student this spring:

9:00 AM: First alarm goes off.

9:30 AM: Second alarm goes off.

9:45 AM: Third alarm goes off. I crawl out of bed in my Winthrop House suite and grab my shower caddy. As I move from my bedroom to the common room I can already hear my roommate, ten steps ahead of me, blasting music in her suite. When I get back from the bathroom I throw on my clothes — the unofficial fall-to-early-spring Harvard uniform is a sweater and leggings — and, if I have time, some mascara. As I’m grabbing my backpack, my roommate puts in a mobile order at Dunkin’ Donuts for us to pick up on the way to class. We speed walk up the red brick sidewalks of JFK St. en route to Harvard Yard.

The view of the Charles River from Leveret House, which is right next to Winthrop House!

10:30 AM: Bacon, egg, and cheese croissants and coffees in hand, my roommate and I settle into the front row of our English lecture: “Modern Women Writers.” I study Social Studies and English and my roommate studies Neurobiology and African American Studies, so we like to find classes in the humanities that we can take together. We pull out copies of Allison Bechdel’s “Fun Home” — mine in print and hers on her laptop — and get ready to take notes.

12:00 PM: After lecture, we grab lunch in Winthrop House. I don’t know if this is a conspiracy theory on my part, an unspoken rule, or just a fact of the lunch schedule, but on Wednesdays the dining halls almost always serve popcorn chicken. We unpack the lecture and chat about pop culture or the day ahead, sometimes alone and sometimes with other friends from the class or from our House. We fill compostable to-go cups with popcorn chicken and head off to our respective destinations: her to a shift at Widener Library and me to a gen-ed class called “Evolving Morality” in Yenching Library, which is near the Harvard Divinity School campus.

2:45 PM: Once classes are done for the day, I have the afternoon and evening to spend on readings, homework, and extracurricular activities. After my lecture, I pop in my headphones and walk from Oxford St. to the Office of Admissions and Financial Aid for a shift with the Harvard First Generation Program . I spend a few hours answering emails from prospective students and working on blog posts (like this one!) before heading back to Winthrop House for dinner.

6:00 PM: Post-dinner, I stop by 14 Plympton St., the building for our campus newspaper The Harvard Crimson . My main extracurricular commitment is chairing the paper’s Arts section, so I’m in the building to meet with editors and writers, produce a print section of the paper, and participate in building-wide meetings and activities at least three or four days a week. The amount of work I get done depends on how distracted I am chatting with my friends who write for the Arts section and for other sections of the paper like News, Editorial, and our magazine, Fifteen Minutes!

Welcome to 14 Plympton St., where there are lots of books and old copies of The Crimson to pose with!

8:00 PM: I head back to Winthrop House for the last time, and settle into my suite for the rest of the evening. I make a list of my readings for the next few days and swear I’ll get through all of them ahead of time — even though I know it’s unlikely. As a Social Studies concentrator, this means a lot of social theory and academic journal articles. My roommate keeps me company in our common room, working on problem sets for STEM classes. We occasionally stop working to chat, grab a late night snack from the dining hall, or watch an episode of Criminal Minds — inevitably staying up way later than we probably should.

At the end of the night, I set my alarms and get ready to do it all again the next day!

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Career Paths: Navigating Life Post Graduation

Data research training group seminar.

In this talk, Cody will discuss some of the different career options available to PhDs in Math (Pure/Applied) and Stats, including but not limited to the various kinds of academic opportunities that exist, non-academic research roles, and some industry avenues.

Zoom Link: https://www.math.arizona.edu/~klin/rtg-zoom

The Minnesota Daily

Inside a day in the life of a UMN graduate student

There are over 4,000 students who attend a graduate program at the University of Minnesota. 

Students pursue different concentrations and stick to schedules that allow them to work on schoolwork while making time for social activities and self-care. So what is a typical day like for a University graduate student? 

The life of a law student

Mollie Ahsan is in her final semester as a graduate student at the University’s Law School and follows a simple schedule. 

With three in-person classes this semester, she said she is in class three days a week from Monday through Wednesday while her Thursdays and Fridays are spent catching up on the week’s work. 

“By the time you get to 3L (final year), most of the classes are on things you really want to be learning about,” Ahsan said. 

She is taking courses on employment discrimination and race in the law, along with an immigration seminar. While Ahsan enjoys all of her courses, she said the one that is the most interesting is race in the law due to the format of the class. 

According to Ahsan, the discussion-based class implements a solutions-oriented mindset, allowing students to think of ways to ensure the law does not harm traditionally marginalized communities. 

“We read more contemporary books rather than textbooks,” Ahsan said. “We really discuss the ways in which law and race intersect because it’s not really talked about a ton in law school.” 

Outside of class, Ahsan said she is an editor for the Minnesota Law Review, a law journal created by the school. She participates in the Law School’s immigration clinical program, a program designed to give students hands-on experience working in law. 

Her clinical placement is at the James H. Binger Center for New Americans, where she just finished working on a big case. 

“A bunch of us went to the Supreme Court in January for the Campos-Chaves [v. Garland] oral argument, which is the case our clinic worked on,” Ahsan said. 

Having the opportunity to work in clinics is valuable to Ahsan, who said they help get her experience. 

“We have a ton of clinics and a lot of different areas of law, and a ton of attorneys who are willing to work with students,” Ahsan said. “You’re engaging with an actual client, you’re engaging in their files, and you’re doing most of the writing.” 

Ahsan said she is currently observing the Muslim holy month Ramadan, so she had to adjust her daily schedule to accommodate her religious obligations.

She added she usually arrives at campus around 10 a.m., where she will work on homework before her first class begins at 1:25 p.m. She coordinates plans on when to leave campus with her husband, who is pursuing a doctorate degree in computer science.

“It’s definitely hard to be in school during Ramadan,” Ahsan said. “I do my homework after iftar [meal to break the fast], so I shift my working goals. During the day, I do a lot of reading and writing.” 

Despite her busy schedule, Ahsan said she makes sure to prioritize social time with friends and family with get-togethers and weekly events. 

“Sometimes, you have to literally put it on your calendar and be like, ‘These three hours, I’m not touching work,’” Ahsan said. 

Studying while in graduate student government 

Tina Jeon is a second-year international graduate student in the learning technologies program in the College of Education and Human Development. 

Jeon is the director of programming for the Council of Graduate Students (COGS), where she plans social events for graduate students, along with Welcome Week and Graduate & Professional Student Appreciation Week events targeted at graduate students and their families. 

Jeon said many international graduate students like herself are coming to the U.S. for the first time and have to adjust to a new environment and build connections at the University. 

“That’s why we’re always trying to do social events for them, which a lot of students attend,” Jeon said.

COGS has several teams working together to create advocacy campaigns to address issues that affect graduate students, according to Jeon. Their executive team meets once a month before their general assembly meetings to discuss updates and upcoming events. 

“There’s an advocacy team within COGS where we do quick surveys on what kinds of issues graduate students are facing and what they want us to address this year,” Jeon said. 

Some issues COGS identified that affect graduate students include housing, compensation, and student health and wellness, according to Jeon. 

“We try to keep an open channel for students to address any issues, and we try to find a proper connection to reach that,” Jeon said. 

Outside of her involvement with COGS, Jeon said she is involved with the Council of International Students and the International Student Advisory Board. She also teaches Korean at the Korean Institute of Minnesota. 

“It has been a great way to connect with other international students and project my thoughts on my experience as an international student,” Jeon said. “I wish that grad school in general had a more inclusive space to them to do it more comfortably.” 

Jeon added she attended school in Korea until high school before pursuing an education at a liberal arts college in Illinois. 

She initially did not want to go to grad school, but said her experiences working at a K-12 school in Pennsylvania drove her to learn more about the education system and pursue education technology to make schools more accessible. 

“You can talk about all the issues and what’s going on in class, but nothing is actually getting done,” Jeon said. 

Med school while working full-time

Annika Clawson said she took a non-traditional route in grad school, pursuing a professional master’s degree in medical device innovation. 

Getting a professional master’s degree means Clawson works at a full-time manufacturing job during the day and attends evening classes twice a week. Clawson, who is in her first year in the program, said she appreciates having hands-on experiences while attending classes in person. 

“It’s been a really cool experience, and I’m really lucky my company is willing to work with me,” Clawson said. “Finding grad school programs like this is kind of a rarity.” 

Her job allows for flexibility while she is pursuing her education. Clawson said she can start and end work at any time, but she typically works from 7 a.m. to 4 p.m. She will go to class from 5:30 p.m. to 9:30 p.m. on the days they occur. 

“My company helps supplement my education because there’s this expectation that the things I learned can help the company,” Clawson said. 

Clawson added her degree’s program falls under the College of Science and Engineering’s Technological Leadership Institute, so her classes are centered around leadership, management, business strategy and technology forecasting. 

“I’m in a bio-design practicum that takes place on Saturdays,” Clawson said. “It’s a bit of a shark tank-style class, where we have a problem in the beginning, brainstorm different solutions and then end the semester with a prototype to solve that issue.” 

With her busy daily schedule, Clawson said she makes sure to keep her home and work lives separate. She will typically not answer any emails at home and spends her weekends doing homework since she has a large amount of time to do assignments. 

“Much of the course curriculum is group work that you also have to be flexible for,” Clawson said. “Finding times to coordinate with four other people who are also working full time can be tricky.” 

Clawson said there is time that gets sacrificed to get assignments done, such as social and self-care time. However, she tries to fit self-care into her schedule as much as possible. 

“A huge stress reducer for me is taking time for self-care,” Clawson said. “I want to make sure I’m getting a good amount of sleep every night, which can also get sacrificed sometimes.” 

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A Day in the Life of a (Biostatistics) PhD Student

Today, I thought I would share what a day in the life of a PhD student is like. Personally, I’ve always been interested in other people’s day-to-day experience at work. So I imagine that similarly, getting a glimpse into my day could be interesting and informative, particularly for students thinking about getting a PhD in biostatistics.

I took two days from my third-year calendar (i.e. pre-pandemic) to give a sense of not only the typical activities I do, but also show how each day can be drastically different. The two days I’ve chosen below are polar opposites in that on Wednesday, I spent most of my day alone doing research, while on Thursday, I had a lot of meetings and other obligations. Usually, my day lies somewhere between the two extremes.

Before I go into the details of my schedule, I just want to note that these two days are pretty much the busiest I ever get. Especially in the later years of my PhD, I’ve become much stricter about my working time (for example, I don’t work after dinner anymore). There is a lot of freedom and flexibility with respect to time in academia, which can be a double-edged sword, so it’s important to figure out what the right balance is for yourself.

Wednesday - A Day of Research

• 8:30AM Meeting - This was a research meeting for a collaborative project with some colleagues in India (hence the virtual meeting in pre-pandemic times).
• 9:30AM E-mails - I usually set 1~2 times in my schedule specifically to check and reply to e-mails, so that I’m not constantly distracted by my inbox. This can happen at the beginning of the day, the middle of the day, and/or the end of the day.
• 10:00AM Gym/shower - Some things to function as a human being.
• 10:50AM Blog - Since I was working on an R package for one of my projects, I felt like it would be useful to write a brief tutorial on the blog at the same time.
• 11:15AM Research - During my research time, what I literally do consists of writing R code (to clean data, run analyses/simulations, build models, or make plots), reading (about statistical methods/tests and other relevant literature), or writing (making slides or drafting the manuscript), more or less in that order from most frequent to least frequent.
• 1:00PM Lunch - Something else I have to do as a human being: eat!
• 1:20PM Research - It’s always great when I get an entire afternoon to work on research uninterrupted, so I take advantage of these times to work on the most cognitively-intensive or otherwise time-consuming research tasks. This afternoon, I was working on two projects: fragmentation, a project where we analyze cell-free DNA to detect cancer, and signatures, a project where we identify mutational patterns in the cancer genome. The latter project has since been published here . I will also talk more about my dissertation research in a future post, so stay tuned!
• 5:30PM Dinner - Time to eat again. I usually cook for dinner, especially when I’m already at home during the day.
• 6:30PM Research - This was the third research project I was actively working on then. I think the maximum number of projects I can juggle at once is three. Beyond that, the research time:meeting time ratio becomes increasingly difficult, since the more time I spend in meetings, the less time I have to actually work on any research updates.
• 7:30PM Blog - Blogging can take quite a lot of time, but it usually feels worthwhile because I only ever write posts that I have an interest in writing in the first place!
• 10:30PM E-mails - I wouldn’t usually check my e-mail so late at night nowadays, but I hadn’t yet figured out how to block off my time yet in my third year.

Thursday - A Day of Meetings & Teaching

• 8:15AM Commute - I take a shuttle to get to campus. The bus ride itself is about 20~25 minutes, but in total, the commute is 45 minutes~1 hour door to door. Even before the pandemic, most PhD students had a hybrid schedule, in which you only have to go to campus for meetings and classes, but are otherwise free to work at home or on campus, depending on personal preference. So on Wednesday, I stayed at home, but today, I went to school.
• 9:00AM Meeting - I was a representative for the biostats department on the Doctoral Student Council. It’s a cross-departmental organization consisting of PhD students, where we meet to discuss how PhD students’ lives can be improved regarding things like benefits, TA policies, social activities, etc. It’s generally pretty casual and a good opportunity to meet PhD folks outside your own department.
• 10:00AM Admin stuff - This is the miscellaneous stuff that people don’t really think about, but it still takes time to do! The things I had to do were to print out slides for my TA session later in the day and then drop off a receipt for reimbursement.
• 10:15AM TA prep - For my TA prep, I mainly review the slides and make sure I understand everything that’s being covered so that I can actually teach it to my students. All the TAs use the same set of slides in their lab sessions so that the content is more or less standardized. Having said that, the slides just provide a base structure and we have the flexibility to teach however we think would be most effective.
• 11:00AM Meeting - This was a larger research meeting for the fragmentation project, consisting of multiple labs. Such meetings can sometimes take longer and run overtime if multiple people have something they want to discuss.
• 1:10PM Lunch - I grab a quick bite to eat on campus on the way back to my office. I have two office locations on campus, one in the School of Public Health (where all biostats students have offices in) and another one in the cancer center (where my advisor’s primary appointment is). The two buildings are about 10 minutes walking distance apart, so sometimes I have to make multiple short trips going back and forth throughout the day. It’s not really an inconvenience, just something you have to budget time for. Side note/pro tip: there’s a maze of passages underground at the medical campus, which is convenient during bad weather.
• 1:30PM TA prep - I finish prepping the material for my TA session.
• 2:30PM E-mails - In these shorter blocks of free time, it can be hard to do anything substantive research-wise, so instead, I just respond to some e-mails. I also returned a hard drive that belonged to a collaborator, which I had borrowed to copy over some data they had sequenced in their lab. We wanted to try applying the methodology we developed in the signatures project to analyze their data.
• 3:30PM TA - I teach the lab session for the statistics sequence at the School of Public Health. Generally, about 20~40 students attend the labs. Sometimes, students will ask a lot of questions and other times, they won’t, so you never know what exactly to expect, even when teaching the same lab lecture (read more about my experience as a TA here ). The lab is technically scheduled until 4:50PM, but sometimes, I finish earlier than the allotted time, like today.
• 4:30PM Commute - The shuttle ride back home usually ends up taking longer because I can’t get my timing to match as well with the shuttle schedule.
• 5:30PM Research - This doesn’t happen very often, but today is one of those days where my schedule is so filled with other things that I don’t get around to research until the end of the day.
• 6:00PM Dinner - I’ve been a bit facetious about having to eat to live as a human being in this post, but it’s worth noting that given the lack of a set schedule in academia and the relative isolation and independence of most graduate students, it’s possible to neglect these life-sustaining activities, so you need to remember to take care of yourself.
• 6:45PM Research - Again, I rarely work after dinner nowadays, but it was something I did more frequently in my earlier PhD years. As a postdoc once told me, a PhD is a marathon, not a sprint, so managing your time off is just as important as the time you spend working.

If you’re interested in a day in the life of a working biostatistician in academia, I recommend reading Katherine Hoffman’s blog post . In particular, she goes into more detail about her research projects, if you’re curious about what research in biostatistics is like.

Graduate and Professional School Launches Spring Awards Ceremony

The Texas A&M University Graduate and Professional School held its inaugural spring awards ceremony on April 16 at Rudder Theatre. The program included presentations of Distinguished Dissertation Awards, Montgomery Awards, Outstanding Mentoring Awards and GRAD Aggies Certificates. The ceremony was followed by a reception in Rudder Exhibit Hall.

“Graduate and professional students and faculty teach and mentor our more than 60,000 undergraduates, conduct ground-breaking research, and lead campus initiatives and organizations,” said Dr. Fuhui Tong, interim associate provost and dean of the Graduate and Professional School. “They enrich our campus community and our growing Aggie Network and make the world better. Presenting our awards at a single event broadens our recognition and celebration of exceptional and well-deserving awardees,” Tong said.

The Montgomery Awards are sponsored by the Jeff ’41 and Leonora Montgomery Family Endowment. Distinguished Dissertation Awards are sponsored by the George W. Kunze Endowment, the Carol J. Cantrell Endowment, and the Mobil Aggies Graduate Endowment.

Distinguished Dissertation Awards

Distinguished Dissertation Awards honor current or recent former students whose dissertations make a significant, impactful contribution to their field of study. Awards are given in four categories.

Biological and Life Sciences

• Hannah Justen, ecology and evolutionary biology
• Faculty advisor: Dr. Kira Delmore

Social Sciences

• Marianne Rice, educational psychology
• Faculty advisor: Dr. Florina Erbeli

Mathematics

• Jacob Rogers, mechanical engineering
• Faculty advisors: Dr. Thomas Lacy and Dr. Justin Wilkerson

Humanities and Fine Arts

• Hyunjoo Yu, English
• Faculty advisor: Dr. Ira Dworkin

Montgomery Awards

Montgomery Awards are presented to graduate students who, through leadership in recognized graduate student groups or service organizations, make major contributions toward creating academic and professional opportunities and enhancing quality of life for their fellow graduate and professional students, while also excelling as scholars. Each awardee receives a commemorative plaque and $1,000.

• Sambandh Dhal, computer engineering
• Leah Kocian, biological and agricultural engineering

Outstanding Mentoring Awards

Outstanding mentoring awards honor individuals who have shared their knowledge, skills or experiences with graduate and professional students at Texas A&M, assisting in their development and activating their success at our university and beyond. Awards are presented in two categories: faculty and graduate student.

Outstanding Graduate and Professional Student Mentoring for Faculty

• Dr. Sarbajit Banerjee, chemistry and materials science and engineering
• Dr. David E. Claridge, mechanical engineering
• Dr. Sarah Hamer, epidemiology

Outstanding Graduate and Professional Student Mentors

• Heather Baldi, agronomy
• Saifur Rahman, biomedical engineering
• Maiya Turner, multicultural education

GRAD Aggies Certificates

Graduate Resources and Development for Aggies (GRAD Aggies) provides professional development opportunities that help students find success in graduate or professional program, on the job market, and in their professional career. Certificates demonstrate to potential employers that students are prepared for the professional world.

For full bios of the award winners and a full list of GRAD Aggies Certificate earners, visit the Grad School website .

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Graduate Student Edition - April 12, 2024

Campus community.

Regents consider tuition, compensation, concealed carry policies and more

Regents approve plans for new chemistry and applied mathematics facility

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Attend the Dr. Evelyn Hooker Award Ceremony April 15

Queer works, book bans and art—a conversation April 18

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AIFMRM’s research retreat is a great success

AIFMRM academics and PhD students held a five-day research retreat at Kommetjie in March. The getaway saw participants present seminars, receive feedback, and connect over walks, swims, and communal dinners.

The scenic coastal village of Kommetjie near Cape Town was the perfect venue for the fifth AIFMRM research retreat held in March 2024. Attended by staff, postgraduate students and visiting academics, this year’s gathering again saw lively debates and discussions, as well as some swimming in the bracingly cold water of the Atlantic Ocean.

The retreat was enjoyed by all, including AIFMRM Honorary Professor Peter Ritchken, based at Weatherhead School of Management at Case Western Reserve University in Cleveland, USA, who visited the research retreat on one of the days. Professor Ritchken said he didn’t know of any other institution in the world where a department would organise a getaway like this for a group of researchers. “It is really extraordinary,” he said.

Adjunct Professor Andrea Macrina, who was in Cape Town for one of his scheduled twice-yearly visits from University College London, organised the programme. He made sure that not one moment of the day was wasted.

“I thought there might be some pushback,” he admits. “But really, everybody was quite happy with it. Besides, it wasn’t so strict as to say, on this night, this person cooks, and at this time, you are allowed to use the bathroom. When we worked, we worked. When it was time to be social, anybody could do as they liked.”

Days were scheduled as follows:

09:00 – 13:00, research work, individually or in teams.

13:00 – 14:00, lunch break, lunch seminar.

14:00 – 16:30, research work, individually or in teams.

16:30 – 18:00, seminar presentations and discussion

18:00 – braai, walk, swimming for those brave enough to brave the freezing waters—like Tanja Tippett, who swam twice.

At the retreat, PhD students and faculty members gave 30-minute seminar presentations on their topic of interest. They had the chance to discuss the challenges they were facing, the direction they would like to take, and receive feedback and questions from those listening in.

“We had invaluable sessions,” said Professor Macrina, who gave a lunch seminar with Benno Günther, an industry practitioner, on a new research project in mathematical climate finance. “It was an excellent space to test out ideas.” The retreat participants, including AIFMRM Director David Taylor, who joined for the day, contributed with many thought-provoking questions and constructive feedback.

The seminars often led to conversations and collaborations, which continued over dinner, where plans were made for future discussions and potential projects.

“The group was very cohesive,” said Professor Macrina. “We were eight people all effectively living with each other, and in such a scenario, it would be natural for some tension to arise, but there was none.”

For the first two years, the mountains of Cederberg made for an intensive work hub. But the last couple of get-togethers saw the venue move closer to the sea, with one hosted in Fish Hoek, another in Glencairn, and the last set in Kommetjie.

“I think, this time, the balance was right,” Professor Macrina said. “If it were a day longer or a day shorter, it wouldn’t be right – people would either be too tired, or we wouldn’t have enough time to have all the discussions we wanted.”

Although he is only in South Africa twice a year, Professor Macrina says that when he visits, he feels as if he is a full-time member. There is a common sense of purpose and academic interest, as well as collegiality and cohesion, an important reason why AIFMRM has the reputation of being an institute quite unlike any other.

• MyU : For Students, Faculty, and Staff

Kavin Muhil Ramesh receives 2023-24 IEEE PES scholarship

Undergraduate student Kavin Muhil Ramesh is a 2023-24 recipient of the IEEE PES scholarship. The PES Scholarship Plus Initiative provides scholarships and real world experience to promising undergraduate students interested in power and energy engineering careers. The scholars major in electrical engineering, are high achievers with strong GPAs, distinctive extracurricular commitments, and are committed to exploring the power and energy field. Ramesh is in his senior year pursuing his bachelor’s degree with a particular focus on power systems and renewable energy systems.

A resident of the Twin Cities for most of his life, pursuing his college education at the University of Minnesota was an easy decision for him. The wide array of degree programs offered and proximity to home were key factors that influenced his decision to come here. In a recent interview, Ramesh shared the factors that influenced his decision to choose electrical engineering as his major, his areas of interest within the major, and the people and experiences that have been particularly supportive of and formative in his academic journey.

What influenced your choice of college and major? My family has a pad-mounted transformer in our backyard. As a child, all I knew was that square metal box was where the electricity in our house came from. But I was always curious as to how the transformer and the power grid worked. In high school I enjoyed math and physics, so the College of Science and Engineering (CSE) and engineering were my priority choices for college and major. I was also involved in my school’s robotics club and enjoyed learning the basics of electronics and programming.

When I entered CSE as a freshman, I was undecided on what specific major I wanted to pursue. However, the CSE 1001 class helped me realize that I wanted a major that offered many different career paths, one that was also connected to other disciplines. Electrical engineering was one of those majors. My parents also played an important role in my major exploration. They were instrumental in showing me that electrical engineering has a variety of applications, and I could have many career paths to choose from. This was important to me as I was still undecided on what I specifically wanted to do on the work front. My experience in the class, my own interest in the power grid, my robotics and programming experience, and guidance from my parents were all important factors in my decision to pursue electrical engineering as my major. 

What are your areas of interest in electrical engineering? How did they come about?

My main area of interest is power and energy. When I took the course EE 2015 with Professor David Orser in fall 2021 (my first electrical engineering class), we worked on a problem that addressed why birds do not die when they sit on power lines. That was something I had wondered for a while. I enjoyed learning the science behind that, further strengthening my interest in the power grid. EE 2015 went well for me, and I enjoyed learning from Professor Orser. I declared electrical engineering as my major shortly after that class. I decided to explore the power and energy sector further during my sophomore year. I found it very fascinating; the more I learned, the more I wanted to keep learning, and I decided to explore the field further through an internship. 

What are some undergraduate experiences that have excited you the most within ECE or at the University?  Professor Paul Imbertson, who has been a great professor and advisor to me, took our power electronics class to UMN Morris in December 2023. We toured their various energy facilities like the wind turbine that powers their hydrogen and ammonia production facility. That experience helped me understand how the University of Minnesota is leading an effort to integrate renewables into our grid in an effort to reduce carbon emissions.

What are some experiences you have particularly enjoyed that you hope to draw on in your career as an engineer?   During my internship at Burns & McDonnell, I learned about the push for more data centers and substations in Virginia to handle all the internet traffic traveling to and from the USA as our world begins to integrate artificial intelligence into everyday life. I learned about the opportunities that exist in the power and energy sector and how it is projected to grow and change in the coming decades as utilities and governments transition to renewable energy.

As an intern with Xcel Energy, I contributed to design plans to fix distribution service in my own neighborhood which I will never forget. I showed my younger brother the linemen replacing a transformer in our neighborhood and explained to him what they were doing in detail; that was a great moment for me as an older brother.

I also visited the Niagara Parks Power Station in Canada where I saw how the power grid first started and how hydroelectric power is really generated. There was a lot of fascinating power grid history for me to see.

I have been able to help others learn the details of the power grid and how it functions because of what I learned in my internships and site visits. For me, it is important to share with others (especially those who are not electrical engineers by education) how power gets to our houses because it is something that everyone needs and uses daily. 

What influenced you to apply for the IEEE PES scholarship?   Kimberly Scott, our advisor, publishes scholarships in the ECE Current, a weekly newsletter for the department. She included the PES Scholarship announcement there; Burns & McDonnell also brought up this scholarship during my internship there. I thought this would be a good opportunity for me to demonstrate my commitment to the power and energy field, so I applied.

I thank everyone who has helped me grow professionally, academically, and personally. My mentors, professional connections, professors, advisors, parents, friends, and faith in Jesus have all helped me find a good home in the power and energy field. 

What are your plans for the future? My future plans are to go to graduate school. I am in the Integrated MSECE program, and I plan on pursuing my masters degree immediately after graduating with my bachelors degree this May. In the meantime, I have an internship lined up for the summer at Ulteig, an engineering firm that is in the power and energy field.

We wish Kavin Muhil Ramesh the very best in his future endeavors.

To learn more about the PES scholarship, visit the IEEE PES website.  

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Day In The Life Of A Vanderbilt Master of Accountancy Student

By Eigen Escario

Andrea Aceveda

The Vanderbilt Master of Accountancy (MAcc)  is a 1-year graduate program that prepares students for a career at the Big 4 Accounting firms and beyond through technical coursework, internship experience, and executive coaching. Andrea Aceveda (MAcc ‘24), walks us through a typical day in her life as a Vanderbilt MAcc Valuation student.

6:00 AM | Commuting to Nashville

Unlike most in her cohort, Aceveda lives at home with her family south of Nashville and has to commute to campus early in the morning for her classes.

“My dogs are the first things I see when I wake up – my 3 labradors are named Coco, Cooper, and Cora,” Aceveda said. “My parents always have our fridge stocked with microwavable food and Starbucks to-go cups, so it makes my life easier before I hit the road.”

A key part of Aceveda’s morning is getting pumped for the day by listening to her favorite music on the drive up to Nashville.

“After getting ready, I hit the road and listen to chill music throughout my drive to Vanderbilt, whether it’s Billie Eilish or SZA,” Aceveda said. “I’ve been listening a lot to Beyonce’s new album too, and mornings with Zach Bryan and Noah Khan vibe so well with morning rides.”

8:00 AM | Introduction to Law and Business with Professor Rose

In her Introduction to Law and Business course with Professor Amanda Rose , Aveceda learns about interesting topics at the nexus of the legal system and corporate business.

“This class is an introduction to the intersection of business with the American legal system,” Aveceda said. “It’s very lecture-heavy, but there are instances where she asks us about our personal judgment in some cases due to the subjectivity of the legal system that requires our opinions. Personally, I am not going to be a lawyer, but it’s still cool to understand.”

11:30 AM | Managerial Strategy with Professor Lawrence

Next on Aceveda’s agenda is Managerial Strategy with Professor Megan Lawrence , which establishes more conventional, economics-based intuitions that are useful in managerial accounting positions in the workplace.

“I honestly really like this class because I had a similar class in undergrad where we talked about firm strategies, whether it concerned differentiators or long-term implementations of business plans that ultimately cultivate their value proposition as a company,” Aceveda says. “We use the strategic frameworks about internal macro and micro factors within the firm into case studies and readings we have in class. It really helps with our weekly topic discussions where everyone just popcorns around about our input on class material.”

1:00 PM | Lunch with Friends

In addition to her Vanderbilt Business coursework, Aceveda is involved with the broader Vanderbilt community by helping out with the intramural volleyball team, which grants her access to the athlete’s dining hall.

“If I don’t bring my lunch from home, I go to Hendrix sometimes,” Aceveda said. “But if I’m eating with other people in the MAcc program, my go-to places near campus are Taco Mama, SatCo, and Cava.”

Vanderbilt Master of Accountancy offers 2 different programs: MAcc Assurance, which focuses on audit and assurance and is the larger cohort, plus MAcc Valuation, which focuses on the intersection of accounting and finance and is intentionally smaller. Aceveda enjoys the close community within her Valuation cohort.

“There are 7 of us in the [Valuation] program. All of us have the same schedule for our classes, so most of us grab lunch and come back to the courtyard to eat together,” Aceveda said. “Our program director is really fun too, and she’s hosted events like holiday parties and other get-togethers that really bring our cohort together.”

2:30 PM | Financial Statement and Analysis with Professor Catherine Lee

Delving into more coursework oriented towards practical skills, Aceveda heads over to Advanced Cost Accounting with Professor Lee to discuss the financial details of the supply chain.

“In this class, we study how businesses look inside their firms regarding internal product manufacturing, cost drivers, and cost pools,” Aceveda said. “It’s essentially normal accounting since we talk about how much it costs to make one product.”

4:00 PM | Executive Coaching Appointment

In order to fully prepare students for a career at a top firm, the Vanderbilt Master of Accountancy program has executive coaches to walk students through their professional development during and after their time in the program.

“We meet with our executive coaches as part of growing our networks and figuring out what our next steps are for our career goal-wise,” Aceveda said. “The 2, one-on-one sessions we get through the program help us figure out how to get personalized help based on our Hogan Assessment results so we get matched with a coach that could best help us.”

Aceveda discusses the impact of the individualized approach of the executive coaching appointments on her professional growth.

“By having an in-depth view of my Hogan Assessment results, I know now that my personality is very high-energy and social, which might influence my career choices later on to work in recruiting or development of new hires or interns,” Aceveda said. “I feel like this insight will help me later on as I get higher up the corporate ladder with more client-facing roles.”

5:00 PM | Decompressing with Friends

There are several opportunities for students to network at Vanderbilt Business, particularly a weekly event called Closing Bell on Thursdays that Aceveda frequents to meet interesting people.

“I take most advantage of our closing bells out of the many programming events that Vanderbilt throws for us,” Aceveda said. “It’s just an informal networking happy hour that they host every Thursday from 6 to 7:30 PM.”

Beyond networking, Aceveda makes the most out of her night in the city before making the drive back home.

“Most of the activities that I do with my friends after my day ends range from going to basketball games, having wine Wednesdays with the girls, or Monday-night Bachelor watch parties,” Aceveda said. “Sometimes, when it’s nicer outside, we’ll go out on a lawn to play pickleball or Spike ball and enjoy the weather before going out.”

8:00 PM | Ending the Day at Home

As the day winds down, Aceveda makes the drive back home and reconnects with her family and pets to decompress for the night.

“Sometimes, I’ll go jogging with my dogs depending on how late I get home, then I’ll shower and usually have dinner with my parents,” Aceveda. “One of the perks of living at home is that I come home to a delicious, home-cooked meal—I always ask my parents on my drive home or any time throughout the day what’s for dinner. It’s the running joke in our family.”

To learn more about the Vanderbilt Master of Accountancy program, student experience, outcomes, and career paths, click here .

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