For PhD and Research

What Makes an Outstanding PhD Student? Insights and Tips

This week marks nearly the last week of seminars and meetings at the school. Since September 2024, I have had 13 “formal & casual” one-on-one meetings with professors (assistant, associate, and full) at the University of Bristol and seminar speakers from globally renowned institutions such as Chicago Booth, Wharton, Peking University, Columbia, EPFL & SFI, Bayes, Edinburgh, UNSW, and USC. Additionally, I’ve had countless informal conversations with academic staff members here at Bristol.

As a first-year PhD student, I often find myself questioning: What does it truly mean to be a PhD student? Are there specific things a PhD student is supposed to do? Am I qualified for this role? If not, or if I want to excel, how can I improve? What separates a good PhD student from an outstanding one?

I raised these questions with my supervisors, who offered valuable insights. They also encouraged me to interact with other academics and learn from their diverse perspectives. I’m grateful for the opportunities to meet with these seminar speakers, and I would like to take this chance to summarize what I’ve learned. This summary serves as both a token of appreciation for their wisdom and a resource to share their wisdom and knowledge with you.

Key Takeaways

1. Think of Yourself as a Junior Academic

   • PhD students should view themselves not as “students” but as junior academic researchers and colleagues to their supervisors and peers.

2. Ambition Matters

   • PhD students who reach this stage are already high achievers. However, the difference between students at top-tier and second-tier institutions often lies in ambition rather than intelligence. Outstanding PhD students aim to tackle significant, novel problems using cutting-edge methods or new datasets. They embrace the risk of failure and push themselves to their limits.

3. Aim High

   • Think big. Pursue innovative and seemingly “impossible” ideas. It’s better to aim for the stars and miss than never aim at all.

4. Master Economics

   • For finance PhD students, a solid foundation in economics (macro, micro, and econometrics) is crucial. Use your coursework period to build this background—it’s hard to catch up later.

5. Take Time to Reflect

   • Don’t rush into research projects. Spend time thinking deeply about your ideas before diving in.

6. Learn Through Practice and Feedback

   • PhDs are a process of learning by doing. Seek feedback—verbally or in writing—from your supervisors and peers.

7. Start with Replication

   • Replicating papers is a great way to develop your skills and understand methodologies.

8. Data Skills Are Key

   • For empirical work, strong data manipulation skills are essential.

9. Read Widely

   • Read extensively to stay informed and expand your knowledge.

10. Stay Attuned

    • Be aware of your interests, trends in your field, and developments in the wider world.

11. Write Often

    • Write frequently and work on improving your writing skills.

12. Develop a Research Agenda

    • Plan and outline a coherent research agenda for yourself.

13. Seek Training Opportunities

    • Attend workshops and training sessions, both online and in-person, outside your university.

14. Be Active and Social

    • Engage with friends, academics, and practitioners. Share your ideas to gather feedback and refine your narrative.

15. Ask for Specific Feedback

    • When seeking advice, be clear about what you want feedback on—whether it’s the research idea, methodology, data, or something else.

16. Manage Your Time Effectively

    • Time management is crucial for balancing research, coursework, and personal life.

17. Prepare for Rejections

    • Publishing in top journals takes years, and rejections are common. While submitting your work, maintain realistic expectations and view rejections as part of the process.

18. Always Ask One More Question

    • Good academics continuously seek to deepen their understanding by asking further questions.

19. Offer Choices

    • When seeking advice, provide specific options to make it easier for others to offer suggestions.

20. Enjoy the Journey [The Most Important Tip!]

    • Above all, enjoy the experience. Embrace research, and savor the opportunities and challenges of your PhD journey.

These insights have profoundly shaped my perspective as a PhD student, and I hope they can inspire and guide you too. Let’s strive not just to be good PhD students, but to be outstanding ones.

Quotes for PhD and Research

1. "For the coding, you learn it yourself; for the research, you learn it by getting feedback." -- Dr. Manuela Pedio

2. "PhD is not a process, it is a journey where you are always up and down." -- Irene and Jorge

3. "It is important to work hard and follow the frontiers instead of being satisfied in where you are" -- Dr. Li, Zeming

4. "Make bold assumptions while testing them carefully."

5. "Good academics are all about asking one more question." -- Prof. Jiang, Wei

6. "I don't think publication should be the ultimate goal. Publication should be the start of your research outcome, not the end of it. The life cycle of your publication/paper just starts after it is published, so I hope you set this as the expectation. Then, I will still answer the question of how to choose the research topic and hope that you can make it into a publication. So I think the most important criterion is your curiosity and your passion for the problem. I think curiosity is the fundamental reason for humans to advance science and for humans to explore unknown problems. And I don't care about the publication, I just care why this problem behaves like that, I just care about how I can solve this problem. If I discover it, then there will be a publication. And if I don't solve that, ok, maybe there will be an incremental publication. But that doesn't matter. So curiosity and passion should be the focus of our research career. " --Dr. He, Kaiming

7. "PhD student should not only be a student but a junior independent researcher instead." -- Dr. Manuela Pedio

8. "I think research is about frustrations, failures, and depression. It is about all the negative words you can come up with. And that's just the reality. If you haven't experienced that, that means you're not doing the best research. That's just the reality and my life is just like that. I was disappointed maybe 95% of the time and then I spent 5% of the time finishing that paper. Then I moved into the next cycle, being depressed; frustrated, and anxious, until the next work came out and enjoyed the 5% of the time. And then so and so forth." --Dr. He, Kaiming

9. My Rules of Thumb by N. Gregory Mankiw, The American Economist

   1. 1. Learn from the Right Mentors

      2. Work With Good Co-Workers

      3. Have Broad Interests

      4. Allocate Time and Crew

      5. Write Well

      6. Have Fun

10. TBC