Question: what does a phD student do?

Julia Attias answered on 5 Dec 2015:

Hi @568nch28,

How long is a piece of string? 🙂 We have lots of duties. The main task for a PhD student is to design a series of research experiments, collect the data, analyse the data, see what you have found, understand if it is what you expected to find, or if it isn’t, think about why that might be, and then summarise your findings. I will run about 5 of these studies over the course of my PhD and then write up all of my findings and summaries from all 5, into a big “book” called a Thesis. So lots of my time is spent in the lab actually doing the studies, and lots of time at my desk analysing numbers, reading other people’s research to see if it helps me to understand what I might expect to find, writing conclusions, or planning another study.

I also do lots of other things though :p I help to teach undergraduate students physiology lessons. I work with many people internationally so I am constantly on Skype talking to my colleagues across the globe about what we should think about doing next. I often present my latest research project in front of my colleagues at King’s, at other universities, and at International Conferences.

I also spend lots of time doing outreach activities like this to help inspire you guys to pursue a science career! I’ll be at the Science Museum all day on the 15th December talking all about my PhD (skinsuit) work to the public.