Book contents
- Frontmatter
- Contents
- Foreword
- Preface
- PART I The first couple of years
- PART II The end of the beginning
- 6 Writing papers and abstracts
- 7 Conferences and poster presentations
- 8 Writing and defending your thesis
- 9 Coping with pressure and stress
- PART III The transition to post-doctoral research
- PART IV Making it in science
- Epilogue
- Web-links
- Index
9 - Coping with pressure and stress
Published online by Cambridge University Press: 05 June 2012
- Frontmatter
- Contents
- Foreword
- Preface
- PART I The first couple of years
- PART II The end of the beginning
- 6 Writing papers and abstracts
- 7 Conferences and poster presentations
- 8 Writing and defending your thesis
- 9 Coping with pressure and stress
- PART III The transition to post-doctoral research
- PART IV Making it in science
- Epilogue
- Web-links
- Index
Summary
It's hard to forget the first time you experience jaw-clenching pressure. I thought I had experienced the true meaning of pressure during my undergraduate finals. But I realised I was wrong when I first encountered real pressure near the end of my Ph.D. I had just six weeks to finish all my lab work. That's when I learned that there was another dimension of pressure that I still had to probe. When I met the real McCoy it left me physically short of breath. It was the kind of pressure that leaves you shaking inside, even though you try all the relaxation tricks you know.
So what plunges someone into this kind of cul-de-sac of stress? And, once you have driven down it, how do you manage to reverse out of ‘stress alley’? It is not a nice place to be. In recent years the ‘stress screw’ has been turned more tightly in all professions. Everyone now has targets and deadlines, and we all have our own personal league table to try to clamber up. Coupled with this, job security, by and large, doesn't exist anymore. OK, that's enough bleakness. You didn't buy this book to top up on depressive stories. You want advice to encourage and uplift you, so let me perform a little analysis of what I went through.
- Type
- Chapter
- Information
- Building a Successful Career in Scientific ResearchA Guide for PhD Students and Postdocs, pp. 59 - 64Publisher: Cambridge University PressPrint publication year: 2006