Trust Me, I’m a Doctor: A PhD Survival Guide



So, you have decided to do a PhD . . . now what? In this essay, the author provides some advice for beginning PhD students, basically sharing what he would tell his younger self. Doing a PhD is a transformative experience, but the process is challenging, not merely on an intellectual level but also psychologically. To overcome these challenges, one needs a certain mindset and a bag of tricks. The author offers some help for getting in the right mindset, and shares some of his own tricks for studying, research, and productivity in general.

Keywords：advice, graduate students, PhD, research



Koen Deconinck (e-mail: koen.deconinck1@gmail.com) is an affiliated researcher at the LICOS Cen- tre for Institutions and Economic Performance of the University of Leuven (KULeuven), Belgium