How to choose a PhD topic | 5 TRICKS you should know about!

hello my beautiful friend so today we're going to talk about how to choose your phd topic and i'll share with you the mistakes that i made that i don't want you to make if you're new to this channel please remember to subscribe and hit that bell notification it means a lot to me also thank you so much to all of my current subscribers i've passed 5000 and i just can't believe it so thank you and i hope to be providing value to your daily life and your phd choices okay let's get on with the topic

so choosing a phd topic is a little bit more than choosing something that you're just simply interested in um it can be easy to think oh i'm really passionate about this thing or you know i really want to find out more about this other topic but in reality you have to do something and there's a sort of really simple way to keep yourself interested for three years and that's just focus on something other than what you are solely interested in and we'll talk about that now so i'm going to share with you my five top

things and five steps that i think you should consider while choosing a phd topic and also i'll share with you the mistakes that i made along the way so hopefully you don't make the same mistakes um but yeah this is with the goal of choosing something that not only will provide something and a value to the scientific field that you're trying to contribute to but also that you can choose something that is actually going to keep you interested for three to four years okay the first thing and this is the most important now you'll hear

a lot of other people talk about choose something you're interested in completely agree that is a very important part of the process but you have to go a little bit deeper because it's not good enough just to say oh i think i'm interested in in my case solar technology because that's the mistake i made is yeah you may be interested in it but what are you actually going to do during that phd investigation so for me i wish i had chosen something that was a little bit more people based a little bit less stuck in

the lab looking down you know like i don't know how i would have molded that and maybe i wouldn't have even chosen uh you know to do kind of a physics chemistry um sort of mix but it it was something that i was like oh the act of doing like the way i answer this question or this field is all in the lab on your own head in a fume cupboard um head in a glove box like that is how that process worked so what i suggest you do is look at something you're interested in

but also go one step deeper and be like how do you do that research like is it going out and speaking to people is it reading is it synthesis is it sitting down with your thoughts and struggling with questions over and over again like you've got to actually enjoy the process of the research and not just the topic and i think that's the sort of like the biggest mistake that a lot of people make is they go oh i'm interested in this area but really they should be saying well do i want to do the

thing that answers that question if you want to work in the field like i wish i had worked more in the field got out you know like solar technology you put solar cells out into the world but i was stuck inside in a glove box for about three years um and you know that's just the reality of doing that sort of research but if you want to get out in the field choose a topic that allows you to get out in the field if you want to speak to people get out and choose a field

that allows you to speak to people you know speak to current students that are researching a similar topic and ask them what does their day look like like are they out are they in are they bored are they happy like all of these things are so important because that is how you make sure you last through the entire three years and you don't go mental the second step is all about niching down your ideas until you come across something that is small enough to ask a specific question about but not so small that it limits

the possibilities of your research so um it can be a hard balancing act and there's no easy sort of like solution to this other than you know we've talked about choose something that you're interested in and you will actually enjoy the process of doing the phd and then niche down so in my experience i was like oh renewable technology that's great um i was looking for solar cells great and then as i'm sort of going deeper and deeper what sort of research is there in the solar cell world so literally for me it was niching

down because solar sails are made up of layers and i focused in on the active layer the active layer is the part of the solar cell that absorbs the light and splits it up into electrons and holes and then that creates the electricity that can be drawn out through the electrodes but you know i it wasn't just good enough to say solar technology i had to niche down what's in solar technology well there's engineering there's the layers there's polymer chemistry um you know even with something within solar cells there are so many different types of

solar cells that i could have focused on one and not the other and as times change you know the one i was working on organic photovoltaics completely switched and they became un sexy and unfashionable and then perovskites pretty much as soon as i finished my phd everyone switched to perovskite solar cells i don't even know what the popular one is right now but i'm sure it's slightly different to where it was even a few years ago um so yeah niche down just keep finding smaller and smaller components of that research area and there's no reason

why you can't say actually that niche doesn't interest me at all what about one next to it what about another aspect of the same topic and then always asking that question what do you do to answer that research question you know for me like i said it was in the lab um always keep that at the forefront of your mind when niching down because that will make sure that you last the distance um and importantly and this is kind of jumping ahead a little bit but if you're unsure this is where you should speak to

a research supervisor reach out to academics and start saying well i've got a general interest in this area can you help me niche down my ideas into um into things that can be sort of put into a research question yes okay number three is you have to look at the research area so the research area um involves going away reading the literature looking at past dissertations now go check out my other video which is on uh how to write a literature review i'll link that above wherever that goes and there you'll be able to see

exactly what the process is for going through the literature but importantly the way one thing in this early stage when we're formulating an idea it's not about you know doing a massive literature review it's just about going in finding something that's um that's going into the niche you've just chosen and seeing what the literature is like because a huge part of the phd process is reading what other people have done right and if reading what other people have done doesn't at least keep your interest a little bit change the idea like that's the only way

you're gonna get through it you know i was so fed up reading uh the same iterations of you know solar cells with different kind of efficiencies and this and that and then it was you know it was a trying time to have to go through the literature but that is what makes you an expert is having a current sort of knowledge and a an involved evolving knowledge of the research area um and yeah i i just didn't keep up with literature because it was so very boring and that that definitely impacted my ability to do

better in my phd so yeah go away have a look at literature and check out that video like i said but also look at past dissertations of research done in that field a dissertation gives you much more of an idea of what a phd looks like in that area because typically um you know they'll be split up into chapters you'll have an introduction and just read the abstract the introduction you don't have to worry about the methodology maybe skim to the conclusions but ultimately that is what you will be producing if you go down this

field this down into this kind of like topic area and so if producing something like that doesn't interest you then start with the end in mind and go you know what i i'm not excited to get to that area so why why would you bother right like you've got to ask yourself put your ego aside do you want to produce a massive thick book a hefty tome about this area because if you go find examples and you don't like the look of them then yeah don't do it right number four is all about finding the

gaps in the current research that's out there now the thing is is that even though you do have to repeat people's experiments in the early stage you have to have that inquisitive mind to be like well they've done that but what if what if we change the solution what if we try to make it more environmentally friendly what if they didn't do it properly like those are sort of questions that you should always write down and what i recommend is as you're reading the literature in the step before is that you write down the questions

that pop into your mind even if they're just very simple questions um and you know it's just like what if they had done this differently what if they had chosen the wrong subset of things to explore what if they changed this very small parameter you know that doesn't look like it's been explored very well and so what you'll end up with after let's say like a half a day of reading the literature is a list of these questions um and that's your first indication of the sorts of gaps that may exist and then as you're

reading more and more if someone answers your question cross it off and then what you'll end up with is a big old list of potential topics and research questions that then you can give to a research supervisor and be like look this is what i've come across this is what i've read these are the gaps than the questions that i had while reading the literature can you help me work them out is this a good topic can we combine some of the topics you know can we niche up niche down those are the sorts of

kind of exploratory um questions you need to ask once you've got that big list of your questions okay number five is and i've touched on it a little bit is go and speak to a potential research supervisor so go check out my other video on how to choose a research supervisor there's loads of um kind of tips and tricks in there that will help you but here's here's the little caveat when choosing a topic now phd supervisors as clever as they are remember that they are only clever in one very very small aspect of the

world right now the issue that i have seen time and time again is that these people like to bring their same expertise to multiple research questions for example there is someone that i know a research supervisor that has one type of machine he has one instrument and he puts everything through this one instrument and look it's a good instrument but sometimes it just doesn't answer the question so there's an old saying that goes if you have a hammer you'll see everything as a nail and i cannot sort of tell you how many times i've seen

that in the research field i actually did a um i was a subscribe for the formulation of this center of excellence right literally i was there to write up the ideas on the board at the beginning of the day everyone was like oh let's you know think outside the box and let's do all these amazing things by the end of the day and arguably by the afternoon everyone was just pushing their own little tiny fraction of research into the research questions they'd come up with and i was like what is the point you know what

these people's research expertise are and if they're not going to think out of the box and just bring the same old stuff they do time and time again to this center of excellence what's the point of this meeting right like yeah and that was incredibly frustrating so the idea about speaking to potential supervisors is a good idea as long as you understand that they are going to see your research question from the skills and techniques that they are bringing from their years of doing research now it could be that thing is perfectly suited to answering

your research question brilliant arguably it isn't right like just question after your meeting with them just be like is there a better way to actually answer this question have they helped me are they just bringing essentially are they taking the easy option out by just bringing the bits that they know and forcing it onto this research question and uh you know that's a that's a reality these people are just people and they like to keep things simple for themselves and if they've got a set of expertise they very rarely like to step outside of it

now when you give them the research topics talk them through let them help you mold the ideas so that you come up with a simple research topic now that should be about 10 to 15 words and the research topic and question needs to be kind of set in stone and really well thought about early on uh because if it doesn't and if the goal pulse goal posts move and if the topic shifts and morphs like it's okay but you don't really want to do that too much because ultimately you only have three to four years

and you want to make sure that that topic is rock solid um and in the first year you'll find out if it is so there we have it there are my ways of making sure that you choose a phd topic that suits you and not the supervisor and yeah making sure that you can actually enjoy the process of a phd focus on the doing aspect what do you actually have to do for three years not what do you have to think about what sort of field are you in like what literally does a day-to-day life

for a phd research student answering that question look like and if it doesn't excite you or if you know it's just a little bit boring and arguably you know they kind of are sometimes um don't worry about it move on look for something else because you have to go through this you have to push through for at least three to four years and i want to make sure that you enjoy the process and that uh yeah it is a success if you're new to this channel please remember to subscribe and hit that bell notification and

if this video was helpful for you please remember to give it a thumbs up and share it with other people who you think it could help until next time have a fabulous day week month or whatever it is and i shall see you in the next video you