Jie's Manchester PhD Research Tips

Jie is a postgraduate researcher in our Department of Mechanical, Aerospace and Civil Engineering. Read her top tips for preparing for your own study; including making connections when you're starting out, learning the best way to collaborate with your supervisor, and how to find the journey that works best for you. This is an edited transcript of Jie’s advice, and you can listen to her thoughts in full as well as all of our other research advice, here.

On...learning to work with your supervisor

“Nobody knows their supervisor on their first day. You’ve got to have time to start to get to know him or her and what they're doing with their research, and then read from their bio on the official website. You know the person's name; you know their project, but you’ve still got to take your time to get to know them from the beginning.

It takes time to make friends and make a connection with them. He or she also doesn't know you as well, so you kind of start this relationship with a fresh page. They want to know you while you also want to get to know your supervisor, so it's based on the interaction with them in every meeting, every email, every talk, every small chat. The best way to have a relationship with your supervisor is to just be honest, talk through any concerns or questions. 

You‘ll need to start to learn their style as well because each supervisor has a different personality and different research styles. Some of them like a meeting every week, some of them like meeting every month. One of my friends had a meeting with her supervisor every day just to talk about research. Everybody is different though; you can't expect there to be a certain style as you need to figure out it yourself. 

You also need to figure out what you can handle and what you cannot handle, because it's a relationship for both of you. For example, if your supervisor is stressing you out you have to tell them and you have to express your stress. Don't just try to impress your supervisor because at the end of the day they’re on your side.

They’re not the one that will mark your exam. An external examiner will mark your research for your project. They are actually your colleague, even though they are senior to you but, by the time you do your research, you will be more expert than them.

For example, my supervisor has tens of projects and he’ll be helping twenty PhD students at one time. How come he can know everything and learn everything?

You can't just wish that they will give you everything, every answer, because you're doing research which nobody has done before. It's something very new, very state-of-the-art in the topic, so they also have no idea about what the research is going to be look like, but they can guide you.

The reason they’re there is because they’re senior, they’ve experienced working with lots and lots of PhD students and they know the best way to lead you to get good outcomes.

My biggest mistake in the first year was trying to impress my supervisor. I kind of took him as the boss of my research and I needed to make him feel that I was a good student and that I was capable of doing lots of stuff - that I could handle everything.

That will stress you out. You are not on the same page as your supervisor, so you need to have a more frequent conversation with him, no matter how often you talk, I believe you always need more.”

On...making connections when you start

“You need to start with your supervisors' students and who they supervise because that's the closest PhD student to you. They’ll have same supervisor and will probably like working in a similar field so you can ask your supervisor to introduce you to other colleagues.

From there, maybe the colleague you meet has other colleagues and they also have other connections. Don't be afraid to express that you're willing to make a friend or that you want to get a connection with someone outside your group. You can't wait for people to say ‘hey, I want to introduce a friend’. Ask them if there are any opportunities or activities that you can join in with, to grab a drink or go out just for fun. 

Also, in each department we have something like a PGR Society. Me and one of the society leaders try to organise weekly coffee mornings every Thursday. People can come and have a chat and a coffee, no research topics and nothing about studying, just to make friends. I believe other schools and other faculty also have similar things. If you can't find one you also can message the department you are in and ask them if they have any kind of similar societies because, after the pandemic, some societies have been quiet and don’t really do much activity, so we all need to reach out.

The university also has the Students’ Union that organises lots of other activities and societies across the whole university. You can usually check on the Students’ Union website to see if there are any interesting activities which they are organising that you can join. For example, I joined the boxing class and the Student Union volunteer group. They also have charity running, charity walking, yoga, city running, there's so many activities going on over there. The Students’ Union is a very good resource.

Another thing is your school website. They will always update when they are hosting organisations, coding clubs, meetings, conferences, and free online tutorial training. Those are some of the small opportunities and you might find someone has the same interests or the same personality or they’re working on a similar project or with similar software to you, and they could all be the reason that you start to make a connection with someone.

Finally, go on to campus, go to your office, go to your desk, and start walking around, just talk to people, give them a big smile, shake their hand and talk, and that’s how you start to have your student life.

On...not rushing and finding your own journey

“I do believe everybody will regret their first year, whatever you do.

No matter how you prepare yourself, no matter how hard working you are, in the third year and on the last day of your PhD you probably wish you’d been doing something else in that first year.

That's the mindset as a human, you will always regret something so don't rush, don't compare yourself with other PhD students. Don't compare yourself with the story you heard from other people.

My first advice, taken from my friend who finished a PhD, is that every PhD is a different journey. Nobody has the same thing so you can't compare yourself with others. It's a journey and you explore the knowledge and the path yourself and with your supervisor.

Some people can start with the experiment and then do the theoretical study; some people do it the other way around.

It depends on the situation for the research topic you are doing, so don't worry about regretting. Prepare yourself before you get your hands on the research and this will make you less regretful. Talk with your supervisor, talk with the people who have a similar experience with your project and listen to different advice. You don't have to take their advice as right, but you need to hear multiple voices and combine with your personality, the project, the supervisor and take time to adjust. Try something and, if you don't like it, try another thing.

Then, at the end of the year, you will shape yourself and you will know this is your style of doing research and that'll make you more confident for stepping into your second year.”

On...leaving time for research and being patient

“Generally, I would say take two to four months to prepare yourself and settle down to get ready for your research field. For two months, have a general idea about the project before you start officially.

For some people, like me, you may not know what's going on with the project, so may need longer to learn the basics, to get to know the software that is going to be used, to learn certain skills for this project, to make a network of people who can be helpful for you in your team or to get networking with people who you are going to collaborate with.

It depends on those kinds of situations, but it definitely takes at least two months. If I could go back in time, I wish I could tell myself that I can really ground myself, be settled and do proper research. Before you start to do your research, you need to go through all the state-of-the-art literature in this field and you need to be patient in the beginning, because usually people who have applied for a PhD can have an ego. We are smart, we think we're good and we can do something can change society and get a paper published. I think that's the passion, but you also need to be mature as a researcher yourself and know what's happened across the whole world and at each university. They have the same teams doing what you are doing, and so you need to know what they are finding out, what they are doing, what software and technology they’re using, you’ve got to learn about that, and it takes time. Otherwise, you will end up with an entire year doing something that didn't work and then you find out that on the other side of the world, a team at another university had already tried it and it didn't work. You don't want to have that moment. 

Not knowing what the challenges are going to be and going through it without preparing, is reckless and is not advisable. 

Get yourself really prepared in terms of literature research, even though it sounds boring. Everybody hates literature research because you need to read both the website or the paper over and over again, summarise everything and criticise them, but that's the thing that will make sure you are a good researcher in your field. You are going to be the expert of this field. You are going to be better than your supervisor.”