What a Research Stay Can Do for You

This is a piece about challenges in doing a PhD and how staying in France for four months changed how I look at them.

In a PhD, there are stretches of time that feel endless – like you don’t make progress, like you’re treading water, like the whole thing is not meant to be anyway. Every single person I know who has gone or is going through a PhD told me that they experienced something to this effect. It’s one of the things that makes a doctorate – which can look like a breezy time of study and self-development from the outside – into a test of patience and frustration. There’s some variance in who experiences it and how much of it, but some of it is always there.

One of the dominating aspects of the PhD is the carrot called graduation, dangling in front of your eyes for years on end, like a guiding star, and equally untouchable. Everything you do is supposed to contribute to this main goal, but sure as hell as soon as you are lost in the jungle of papers, teaching, and all the little extra things that pile up, it’s quite freaking hard to see clearly what contributes to this path. Papers, you are told, papers are the bread and butter, publish papers often and publish them someplace good and things sort themselves out. And then your papers get rejected and what seemed like stepping stones before are now dark pits of despair. It’s quite some struggle.

You know all this, it’s part of the mutual understanding between academics to-be. But although we all experience it and are good at rationalizing it, the dark webby feelings that these experiences build are hard to shake off. One thing that can help to make these feelings less dramatic is perspective: To know how your experience relates to others’ experiences in the bigger picture. This is what this text is meant to give. It builds on the experience of me visiting a French university for four months, located south of Paris in a town called Palaiseau – and any person living in Paris will immediately challenge its funny name, Télécom Paris, because it’s not quite in Paris is it??

Anyhow, the idea of the stay was to get into touch with other researches and structures and to work out a paper to submit to a conference on a topic that was related to my own. It all worked out better than I ever expected, and that is even though the paper was rejected in the end. Papers get rejected (and resubmitted) all the time, but what mattered really were other things – being in another building and working with other people and seeing them struggle and seeing them graduate. In some way, the combination of these experiences put a new framing to this whole PhD business, which I try to put down in this text to inspire whoever needs to hear it.

In essence, what I took away was perspective on three things: completion, freedom, and acceptance. But before we get to this – just to be sure we’re on the same page – what’s so hard again about doing a PhD?

There are so many ways to fail

We said above that it’s not always clear what contributes to the final goal of graduation. I think large parts of what makes a PhD difficult struggle can be tied to this circumstance, that what you put in does not easily relate to what comes out. The following is my simplified three-point dissection of three factors contributing to this uncertainty to explain why it’s easy to lose track of progress or believe that no progress is taking place.

1. Arbitrariness: To put in effort does not output success in the same measure.
   In many other things in life, the more time and energy you invest, the better the result will be. Sports work like that, exams work like that, hobbies do, and so on. And yet, with PhDs, this somewhat linear relationship breaks down. Nearly every doctoral student I met has been putting in a lot of effort, and still it does not seem to guarantee success. It’s easy to find reasons: It would be odd to expect that your submissions land from the get-go, there’s a learning curve involved; also, we all know it’s a number’s game and you may just have bad luck with the reviewers; and anyway, this is how research works, if your contribution is not good enough it gets rejected until it is. Sure, that’s all true, but what we’re left with is the feeling that more effort does not mean more success necessarily, and it can make it look like it’s a game of luck, one that’s rigged for someone else. Why then do we struggle so freaking hard, if it’s all luck anyway? (You see the rhetorical exaggeration, but then again it’s not so far from reality, I’ve heard this exact statement multiple times.) It’s easy to understand how one can despair over this thought.

2. Stagnation: To put in effort does not feel like it outputs success at all. The feeling of stagnation is related to arbitrariness, but different: We see that what we do has an effect, but it does not have an effect on the actual success measure, which is the number of papers and graduation. In my bubble, publications are the only thing that really counts towards graduation in a formal way. Not the teaching, not the conference visits, not the student supervision, not the research stays, not the connections, but the papers. It’s a slim measure, quite compact, easy to grasp. And devilishly, you can spend years putting energy into all the other things I listed and they will reward you on their own terms, but they will not contribute directly to the one success measure that rules them all. It can feel frustrating - are all these things not part of what makes academia worthwhile? And here comes the vital difference, as I see it: These extracurricular activities produce progress on the way to academia, which is a broader and much longer path than the path to graduation. But graduation is a gatekeeper, and it only takes papers for payment. Unfortunately, even focusing on papers can be unsuccessful, which takes us back to point one. Coincidentally, this focus on paper output, captured in the saying publish or perish, was identified as one of the factors that drove the replication crisis, as it incentivized “prioritization of research quantity over quality”. Don’t trust me on this, trust this Nature article.

3. Unattainability: To put in effort is in vain, success does not exist. If arbitrariness and stagnation mix in an unholy alliance, graduation can seem more and more unlikely. If it’s the guiding star in good times, a sufficient amount of bad luck, frustration, and external hardships can make it blurry to a degree that you doubt it was ever there in the first place. This moment of perception is not far from an existential crisis and it can tip people over, losing hope that it will come to an end and believing that all the past struggle was for nothing. This feeling certainly is one of the heaviest weights in a PhD, especially since we know that many people do, in fact, not graduate. One number to capture this effect is how many doctoral students take longer than expected or quit altogether, which seemed to be around 60% in Europe in 2015 (averaged over disciplines). This pit can be quite dark. But against all this intimidating backdrop, it’s good to remember that there are people who do in fact finish (and that people who do not finish most likely have very happy lives!). To French speakers, I can recommend a fantastic comic that tells such a story with great charm.

Alright, these are the three apocalyptic riders of PhD struggle. Now that everyone’s afraid, we can come to the part that brings back the light.

Completion: It is entirely possible to graduate

Let’s start with an anecdote.

While I was at Télécom, I met many doctoral students who were closing in on the end of their PhDs – hiring and finishing was done in waves rather than continuously and I happened to arrive just at the end of one such wave. During the four months I stayed, I got to know seven people who defended their theses and finished. At my home university, I only had witnessed one defense from my research group and was aware that two or three had taken place in other groups, in a span of 2 ½ years. But when, on a daily basis, I met people who were just about to finish their PhD, even with all the caveats and struggle attached, it somehow normalized the step of graduation. When watching others stand in front of their jury committee, presenting their PhD work, and being awarded the title, it does not seem so unattainable after all. Rather naturally you ask yourself how you would fare in this situation, and when that may be the case. Witnessing other people graduate shifts completion back into the realm of the real.

Among all these PhD defenses there was only one story, from back in ancient times, of someone who had not passed it. It was in the area of mathematics and the whole thesis built on a specific proof, which the student presented and defended before the jury committee. After the jury was done with their questions, the audience was routinely asked for any remaining remarks, and one audience member spoke up to ask something very specific. If it was not addressed, this question would invalidate the presented proof. And tragically, the student could not rebut this, and neither could the jury members (nobody is there to see a student not pass), and since the proof constituted the whole of the thesis’ contribution, the title could not be awarded. While we should sit in a minute of silence for this student, it also shows that circumstances need to be quite particular for things to go wrong when you made it to the defense.

What I took away from the many graduations and the many moments of happy celebrations (students’ families and friends often cook for days to create a large buffet for the after-defense party) at Télécom, is that it is absolutely possible to graduate. Normal even, people do it all the time. If you doubt that it can be done, watch other people do it. Of course, context varies, and serious hardships might impede the whole thing. But then again, one of the French graduates experienced quite serious hardships with their supervision, topic, and personal life, and still they freaking did it. It can be done.

Freedom: You can choose what you do

The word is incredibly cheese, but I cannot find a term that better captures this perspective change. With freedom I mean the re-realization that research offers a degree of freedom in your work that is hard to find someplace else. You may know it from back when you chose a dissertation topic, or just before starting the next paper, in these moments where everything seems possible and you just need to pick a place to land. It’s wonderful, but also terrifying and hard to handle - how should you make any informed decision about where to land? It’s terrifying because this choice needs to be measured against our one and only success measure. But when, for a moment, you put aside this limiting view, it’s really an offer to follow and study anything you might find interesting.

In France, I became aware of this freedom in a mix of circumstances: For one, my own supervision did not have articulate expectations about what should happen during this stay (apart from it should result in a paper). Similarly, my collaborators on-site were curiously interested and engaged, but not dependent on the project outcome. This meant that both topic and approach were not pre-determined and could be adapted to study what we found interesting. Of course, the general area was set by the French research stipend that funded parts of my stay. But within these very broad confines, it was nothing short of luxury. And for the first time I believe I understood what it’s like to work as a researcher in a best case academic scenario.

Now, if we are realistic, there are never no expectations to fulfill or goals to meet. This particular situation was made possible by a considerable financial propping through both my home contract and the stipend. That is, freedom in content was supported by freedom in finances (as it so often is). But again, it’s not witchcraft, it’s funding and a cool environment - things that are not easy to find but that are definitely findable.

Two extra anecdotes on job hunts and team dynamics:

When we were talking about the big ever-after of the PhD, one of my colleagues told the story of how they tackled finding a Postdoc position. What are you when you graduate? For one, a researcher who proved that you can work independently and contribute something. But you are also part of a large network of people who are interested in strange ideas and complex problems. So instead of applying for Postdoc positions right away, this colleague wrote to research groups and asked if they could meet for a chat, to present the PhD work, to see what the group’s research was about, to just kind of hang for a bit. The overwhelming majority was happy to invite the colleague, which resulted in an academic roadtrip of something like 12 research groups. Naturally, several of them offered up Postdoc positions, but finally, the result was Télécom Paris. I found the whole idea brave and creative. Yes, it’s about employment, but it’s also about the best fit with topic and team. Why not prioritize finding this best fit?

And this segues nicely into the second thought: The team dynamic in our office at Télécom was wholesome to a degree it sounds tacky. Not knowing each other at the start, before long we began to share hobbies and knitted and went climbing together, with regular happenings and get-togethers for board games and movies. Every day I looked forward to going to work to meet our office crew, and critically, they all actually were in the office most of the time, which was a bit of an oddity at Télécom, a school so removed that people need to commute for 40+ minutes from Paris. The dynamic was certainly fuelled by many context factors, but the experience created a kind of certainty that it is possible to find such a dynamic, and that it’s well worth looking for.

Acceptance: Peace of mind is a strategy

In combination, it all sounds like the motto of some spiritual journey program, doesn’t it? But in fact, it’s strategy: Managing your resources (funding, mental health, time, etc.) to “finish your PhD before it finishes you” - the point is so evident that it became a proverb. With this in mind, my point on acceptance is that some battles are better to fight than others.

Structural factors are a bit different at Télécom compared to the Uni Vienna. Most notably, standard contracts run for three years there, instead of four here (though the percent of hours might be different). And there’s no hard limit of having a specific number of publications, the focus is on the thesis instead. So the success metric is a bit more lenient, while the time frame is not, three years is what you get.

Does this produce stress and hyperventilation? Absolutely, just as it does here. I talked to people about pros and cons and I’m not sure there’s a clear preference – people are equally stressed and the path to success is equally murky. Yes, having three published papers is somewhat oppressing, but Austrian PhD students (and academics) are paid more on average. Yes, being done in three years is nice, but maybe another one would help you build your profile. In my mind, perks and drawbacks somehow balance out.

I said above that the three points of struggle can make it feel like the PhD game is rigged for someone else. Visiting the Télécom made me think it’s rigged for nobody, it’s just a bit bad in general. People are stressed and things move too slow or too quick and there’s quarrel between students and professors and administration, output is prioritized over long thought, there’s not enough funding and university politics interfere with research etc etc. To be fair, I didn’t visit Harvard or the MIT or Oxford, perhaps things are different there, paradisal, easy and unencumbered, but I doubt it. I think accepting that it’s just somewhat bad in general can be a path to mental peace. With this I do not mean accepting that it naturally has to be this way or that it’s good like it is (or any form of power abuse or harassment and such). But accepting that, as a PhD student, playing along within reasonable bounds and taking it one notch less serious might be ok. From my French senior colleagues I received the advice that some sort of break should follow the PhD, because one is too exhausted from the whole circus to deliver something meaningful anytime soon after graduation. I suspect that part of this break is to get some distance from the academic system as well, which does funny things to your head when you stay in it for longer times on end.

So, what can a research stay do for you?

It gives perspective, and this perspective can be relieving. Seeing others tread the same path, seeing others curse at familiar problems, seeing others overcome considerable challenge, it all sheds new light on known issues. By having new points of reference to relate your own experiences to, it might change how you feel about the struggle, and it might help making it that much less existential. Of course, the obligatory disclaimer is that no research stay is the same and that all of these things might also be observed close to home. But I do believe that uprooting yourself from the usual surroundings and going someplace new has a value in itself. And that’s not even speaking of culture, language, cuisine, and all the other things that are part of the experience.

So, this is what I took away from my research stay, and this is why I would encourage anyone to consider doing one of their own. To wrap up, here are a few quick and easy pieces of wisdom on the practical aspects:

• Many research groups will be happy to host you if you bring your own money. Securing funding is half the battle. Even top schools like Oxford and Cambridge are approachable when you bring your own funding.
• To secure funding, look up stipends at your uni, at the target uni, at academic exchange programs (like DAAD, ÖAD), and at country-specific education institutions (like Campus France).
• To find a collaborator (someone who will host and work with you, basically your host-supervisor), look through your list of contacts from conferences, workshops, get-togethers, etc. If you don’t know anyone, look up researchers whose work you find really interesting. Write a friendly and well-motivated mail asking if their groups take visiting researchers.
• Speak to your supervisors at home to clarify what is expected of you and the project. Consider if they would like to be part of the collaboration and note down what you agree on.
• When arriving at your exchange place, go to every social event you can find (for some time). I was told that research stays can be lonesome if the office is empty. It’s easy to meet people through language meetings, board games, sports, hikes, book clubs, and the like (the app Meetup has a huge selection of such events).

Thanks for reading! Do not hesitate to reach out if you would like to talk about ways to secure funding, establishing connections abroad, planning the project, and coordinating with your supervisors at home. I’ll be happy to chat and share anything that could be useful.