Thinking of starting a PhD - the signs as well as my gut tells me to go for it

Hello everyone!

I’m considering going right into the deep end of research and study because I have made my bed with academia. Although friends and other colleagues have gone into industry or corporate, private sector careers, I love learning and upskilling myself to take on other fields. I’ve been working in the college for 8 years now doing commercial research (knowledge transfer business), and I just love the variety of projects that I’ve been involved in. I’m currently, putting together my proposal and hoping that there’s sufficient breadth and depth in it for full-time study and research.

Maybe I’m naive - but I think I would really like this.

Would love to get to know the community here

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Welcome @Velcro!! I’m from Brazil and over here we have a popular saying that came from a very famous movie that says

You got here on your own two feet.

Such as nobody told you to come here and go through this. That was exactly my thought when I read your post :sweat_smile:. So… Welcome!!

One thing you did not mention is if you have a master’s degree. I don’t know how much you know about the field but even though almost all programs accept students coming straight from undergrad, they usually consider this when the student has actual research experience. I’m saying this in case you don’t have a master’s and don’t get frustrated later :sweat:.

Nonetheless… Welcome!!

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Hi Diego,

Thank you my friend for the warm welcome.
I don’t have a Masters Degree because I dropped it. I had 50% of the modules completed in Mechanical Engineering but I was told that I can avail sponsorship if I applied for the PhD programme and so that’s what I did.

I’ve been working in the research centre at my university for 8 years now and have conducted many desk-based reviews as well as experimental research. I also was involved in developing prototypes and proof-of-concept ideas.

I’m meeting a potential supervisor and will probably undergo a level of scrutiny on my topic proposal.
I enjoy framing experiments to answer various research questions as well as evaluating results using scientific criteria.

I’m working on my first paper to publish by next month and I believe there is more to uncover in my chosen topic. I have some experience in my chosen field and currently enjoying learning more about it. I have developed applications that demonstrate their applicability and now I would like to use them as tools to gather data from various contexts.

I know it’ll be a long road but I believe I have the grit (ask me about this in a years time lol) to take on this research topic.

I know that I will get frustrated along the way but I have other colleagues who are also in their PhD journey so I’m not going at it alone. Plus now I have his new community I can share my experiences with.

Thank you for the pleasant welcome!

Velcro