After two years of COVID-related delays, five doctoral candidates share lessons they learnt.
absorption and emission in the soil. But as too much time passed, some of the excluded plants grew back and some of my data became obsolete. I lost data from a similar experiment in County Offaly, Ireland, and funding to help pay for some field experiments. A lot of the time and energy I’d put in felt like it had been wasted. It felt like a failure.
It’s a very small project — the bare minimum to pass — but it was important that I got some hands-on field experience. Students facing major changes to their PhD should evaluate all the available options. Ask yourself what you aim to get out of doctoral training and whether your path will achieve this. Discuss changes with your supervisors, other colleagues and mentors to get an objective view.Jasmine Evans is studying pharmacology at Florida A&M University in Tallahassee.
I developed strategies that helped me through four months of disruption. I moved back to Fitzgerald, Georgia, to stay with my family so I could have supportive people around me. I also created a detailed colour-coded schedule of classes, assignments and deadlines. I plastered the walls of my room with sticky notes to remind me what I had to do and put alerts in my phone as backups.I really had to take a step back at the end of each day. I made sure to close my computer and unplug.
For example, one of the project’s biggest challenges is to find a suitable catalyst that will improve battery performance. But I couldn’t test catalysts in the lab. Instead, I read computational studies that modelled catalyst surfaces to see how they would react. This helped me to narrow down my list of candidate catalysts and cut the number of experiments I needed to perform.
I felt disheartened. To pick myself up, I read novels and books on diet and well-being. I also stopped paying as much attention to COVID news because it made me feel depressed. Instead, I completed several small paintings, using watercolour and paint pens. It gave me a sense of fulfilment to complete a piece of work, even if it wasn’t related to my PhD. I made slow but steady progress on my PhD through online meetings with my lab colleagues and supervisor. I also wrote two book chapters.