How do I know how well I am progressing in my PhD?

Question

A striking difference between being a student following courses and a PhD student doing research is the independence and lack of rigid structures such as homework and exams. I started a PhD in biophysics in the Netherlands a bit over a year ago and so far it has been a good experience. However, I found it hard to gauge how well I am doing and whether worries about my progress are justified.

My supervisor is supportive and provides frequent feedback. Despite the clear benefit of getting feedback in person over getting it through a graded exam, personal discussions can have a subjective feel to it, which makes it less clear cut than getting a mark. As students we were used to getting seemingly objective, quantifiable measures of our progress. The academic equivalent would be papers, but my supervisor has stated clearly that he goes for quality above quantity and as a result there will likely few if any papers until perhaps the final year of my PhD (also because we are a very new group). I also support his vision of not focusing on churning out papers but on doing good quality research.

How do PhD students and young researchers know how well on track they are? Let's say that the objective is to finish the PhD on time and continue doing research (in either academia or industry, not necessarily on a faculty position).

Answer 1

In my observation over some decades (in mathematics), I think it is nearly impossible for a PhD student to gauge their own progress. Sure, it is possible to know whether one feels discouraged or encouraged, etc., but these are mostly artifacts of one's own temperament and of the general environment, not indicators of one's progress.

If you have an engaged, perceptive, competent advisor, they will by-far be the best judge of whether you're on-track or off.

Even then, the real goal is not to measure up to some scalar-valued "good/bad", but to _become_what_you_can_.

Answer 2

I can tell you how I measured my progress in an area (Theoretical CS) where the few papers arrive on the final year of the PhD. The first year of my PhD I studied a lot. I mean a lot.

And I realized I was making progress when I could follow arguments and expositions that were too alien for me in the beginning. When I was reading a description of a theorem (not the proof) or an algorithm and thinking "Ah, this is not surprising because of such-and-such reason". When initially heavy subjects became part of my everyday routine.

When I arrived to that point, I was confident I was on the right track even without any publication.

Answer 3

Ask your advisor.

I mean, you can even forward the question to him in an e-mail... That's what advisors are for. Ask him if is there anything else you could be doing, what can you do to improve your performance. Literally nobody else would be as informed as him at this point.

Answer 4

Something that was missing in previous answers is the opportunity to apply for a PHD Symposium. You can basically do that at any stage of your PhD. There will usually be a three people panel, evaluating both your presentation and your presented research.

If you find one that is associated with a relevant conference, the panel will be from your field of expertiece. In early stages of a PhD, they will give you advice on possible research directions, in later stages they will tell you what research they see is still missing, in order for you to graduate.

In such a setting you can also directly ask for feedback about "being on track".

One more remark:

I also support his vision of not focusing on churning out papers but on doing good quality research.

Just keep in mind, that every paper you publish includes 1) meeting relevant people at the conference, 2) getting feedback (both by the reviewers and the audience), 3) getting training in holding presentations, and 4) a trip to a usually nice location ;)

So yes, good quality IS very important. But that does not mean, that you can't publish some workshop papers, or B conference papers, with preliminary results. That will only improve the quality of your main papers.

Answer 5

I think the most straightforward metric is how many chapters for your thesis you have, excluding the Introduction, Background (if you will have one) and Conclusions. You are not writing papers, but I assume you are writing. Each piece of writing be it a paper or not should be either a chapter or contribute to a chapter significantly, purely to make writing the thesis easier but also aiding you in measuring your progress. You should find out how many core chapters you need in your final thesis, what is the norm in your area/group? (my guess is four) Now, taking into account your comments, it may be that you're not writing much yet, but you can perhaps try to think of how many chapters you will get from the results you've gained experimental or otherwise (e.g., you have tested X related hypotheses and so that's one chapter).

On the softer side, getting a PhD is also about becoming an independent researcher. From what I have seen, those that continue as researchers during their PhD develop from being dependent on their supervisory team, where they tell you what to do, to be independent such that they tell their supervisors what to do. The ultimate goal, is to actual become interdependent with co-authors, so that you need each other equally. You can assess this by seeing how much of the work is your own idea, I expect during your final two years most of it will be, and how often it is you demanding your supervisors to read/comment over them telling you to do X, Y or Z.

I base these two above metrics based on courses I have taken, and my own experience doing a PhD and observing other successful (or not) PhDs.

Answer 6

It also depends on the PhD program you are in. Who is deciding when and if you get your PhD, and what are the requirements? Is it just your supervisor who decides? In my case the supervising team had nothing to do with the evaluation of the thesis and the defence. So get to know the official and unofficial requirements and then measure your progress accordingly. I think its very important to always keep that in mind, and focus on finishing. Its easy to get distracted by side-projects and learning new tools.