Hello my dear readers.
As you may or may not have noticed, I've been absent for a while. This was because I was notified by my supervisor my thesis had to be handed in two months back in december and I made it my highest and only priority. The whole experience was so much different that I thought it would be. Still, I want to share my experience with you, in hopes of helping you if you are a PhD candidate as myself, or if you want to start a PhD or even if you don't do any of that.
The first draft
In december, and with Christmas upon us, I realized I had to hurry up and write as much as I could, read as much as I could, and learn a whole more lot. For moments, I thought I was not going to be able to make it, but I did. So, the first tip: Believe in yourself. I had to convince myself I already knew a lot about the subject and that I could learn everything else on time. Like every other science and any other area of knowledge, it's infinite, and you have to make sure to outline your borders, and kind of draw a line, in order not to go crazy. This is very useful as well when you are writing scientific papers. The first draft. For me, shape and presentation are crucial, and I was mortified to think that a thesis could only be on black and white. For me, color is everything and it was very important to me to feel inspired and focused. So, the first thing I ever did was deciding on a template and a theme. I wrote the thesis on Microsoft Word, and I looked throughout the templates online. I found one that I liked, with a share of color without it being inappropriate. Then I made a list of topics and items that had to be included, starting of with big sections, such as introduction, materials and methods, results, discussion... And some subsections, that I thought were necessary.
Down to the writing
And then the writing begun. A few months back I started to write the introduction, and basically reviewing the subject(s) necessary. As you may know, in the course of your PhD you're always reading and searching for the latest information available about your subject. So, starting to actually summarize it and write it down as a whole. It might take a while. A long while. A very long while. In my case, I spent about a month trying to finish up the introduction. A friend of mine and colleague, who was in the same situation, advised me to see if some of it could go in the discussion section, which was very useful and at the end it was actually better that way. After that I continued with the rest of the sections. At first it seemed like the rest was easy to tackle, and it was, except for figures that had to fit the margins, and they had to agree with the size of the text, etc. And then, it got difficult. The discussion was without question the hardest part to write and it took longer than expected. Depending on the topic I was going back and forth and it took a while. But still, since this is the gist of the thesis, it's very important to know what to say. On the results section I described, very formally and thoroughly the results I got, but the discussion is a whole different story. I mean, it's the same story, but it should be presented differently and the data should be deeply analyzed. I had to see every single figure and really look at it carefully. In my case, and it most cases I think, I have different topics and they all had to be brought together in a way that to the reader it feels like you're telling a story, justifying every step of the way, and looking a the big picture. Then zooming in, compare the data to other people's and then go back to the big picture.
In the meantime
This is probably the part where I felt it was very different than I expected. I didn't stay up all night writing or skip any meals. This was a really important time on my life and I made sure I was OK. First of all, the brain needs a little rest and it actually needs food. I made sure I slept whole 8 hours and I stopped working in order to eat properly. No junk food, but mostly three meals, lots of tea and water. That said, I must also say I had to basically isolate myself in my house and never leave. I leave with my parents and they helped a lot. My mom cooked for me, so I only had to stop to eat. I'm a very slow eater and I was very lucky she helped out. I stopped going to yoga classes, seeing my friends and family and every now and then I rewarded myself with a short tv show. I also made sure I stopped every now and then to stretch a little.
The advisors
My thesis had 2 advisors and sometimes it's hard to please them both. Still, it's key to have a good relationship with them, and being very patient to understand their point of view, that at times, can be very different from you. So keep in mind they know best and that this might be a once in a lifetime experience for you, but they've probably been through it a few times.
So very briefly that was it. And like that, I'm done!! Now I wait :)
