Highs and lows are a normal part of life but doing a PhD can accentuate them. One day you may think that you are onto something really important, great, significant, world shattering. The next, you may think that all you have is rubbish and no one will give you a PhD for it. Throughout your PhD, the reasons for experiencing highs and lows could change. Beginning At the very beginning is just normal anxiety which comes with making a change. And you most likely will experience a change in status - either by moving to higher levels of being a student, or by coming from a career outside the university - and you could feel uneasy or even disappointed at again becoming a nameless student. You will have to find ways of fitting in and becoming a member of what could be a well-established group in the department. It may take a while for you to discover what your role actually is in the department, what to expect from others and what they expect from you, how to operate, and where to go for help if you come across any problems you can't deal with on your own. About this time, it is good to examine your hopes and fears as a PhD student. You can list them, consider them, and then take each and think about what you would need to do to realise your hopes and to avoid having your fears materialise. This preparation is worthwhile and helps to arm you against the PhD emotional roller coaster. End of the first year Towards the end of the first year, although the first wave of enthusiasm could have carried you a considerable distance, insecurity can still strike. You could doubt your own intellectual powers. You are gaining more knowledge and are more sure of what it is you are going to do, which is a positive feeling. But, at the same time, you are seeing just how much has been done, some of it at a high standard, and you may be wondering where your work fits and whether it is of enough importance or significance. You may have to face the fact that you need to brush up some skills or acquire new ones. In many universities it is customary at this time to have to seek confirmation of your candidature. Perhaps the application for this may need to be accompanied by a proposal or transfer document. This gives you an excellent opportunity to take stock - to see how much you have achieved, what the next step should be, what you have to concentrate on first, and to consolidate what you have. If such a document or rite of passage is not there formally, it's not a bad idea to do something like this in any case. Perhaps you wouldn't write a formal document, but at least write down your achievements to date, the focus of what you plan to do, whether there are any changes in your thinking about your work, and any difficulties or concerns you have with it. Maybe then in your next meeting with your supervisor you would use this document as the basis for a review. Middle years The middle years present you with different challenges. Sometimes the highs come from the excitement of publishing or attending conferences, and the confidence and positive outlook this brings. You know what you're on about and you're doing it well. The down side of the middle years could be that, even if you know that you've made gains, there seems to be nothing much to show for your efforts. This is the case more in some disciplines, often the less experimentally based ones, than in others. At this time, your motivation may be low, and the drive to go on seems to have deserted you ?.. perhaps because long periods of just this state seem to stretch ahead. Maybe you have been working too long in isolation and you need to kick start by talking to colleagues, to your supervisor, other researchers in the field, and attending seminars and, if possible, conferences. Perhaps sit down and think about what you've discovered which, contrary to your overall feeling, is tangible. If you're not already keeping some record of things done, perhaps you could consider beginning this. By thinking about what you've done, you may isolate parts which could be written up or you could identify tasks which are well advanced and could be concluded. Even if it's not tangible in the sense that you could have a written version of it, you may be able to say that you have now really a good grasp of the analytical framework you're using, or that the difficult conceptual problem you encountered is now solved. The idea is to find evidence that you've done something and then show it to yourself! Writing: Last years When writing becomes the dominant task you can experience real pleasures and terrible frustrations. Your creativity could even seem to be channelled entirely into devising more and more exquisite forms of procrastination. And then, when you do write something, you may prefer to keep it secret. You don't want anyone to read it until it is in its perfect, finished form. You may be frustrated because it doesn't seem to fit together and turn out the way you expected it to. Or you could be bored with writing about something you have worked through and which seems to be 'old hat' to you by now. Remind yourself at this stage that writing about complex things is not easy. Also, remember that, no matter how great the discovery, if you don't write it up, no one will ever know about it and, furthermore, very likely you yourself will have missed some of its significance. You need readers...You need feedback...And working alone until its perfect never works. So, seek feedback from as many sources as possible, but certainly from your supervisor. The feedback will be mixed - there will be things to change, to expand, to fix - but, what's more important, there will be positive things said about your work. This is one of the rewards you seek and you, too, can reward yourself for good work. In general We have talked about frustrations and joys more specific to each stage. There are more general points also. Throughout, you have to structure your own work. In general you may like this freedom to do so in your own way. But from time to time this freedom could become a problem. Since you are the one who has set up your structure, it is then easier for you to find 'good' reasons to break it than if it were set up by somebody else. Often the reluctance to work within a structure could be that the structure is not the best possible, but more often it seems to us there are other reasons to prevent you working, such as those already discussed. Nevertheless, we find PhD students who have a very unstructured approach to their work face serious problems. Part of dealing with all of these situations is to acknowledge that shifts in your mood, self-esteem and confidence are common to almost every PhD student. Don't feel bad about it because this just adds another layer of anxiety. Beyond this, you need some practical strategies to deal with it: try to establish a daily routine, for both your work and your home life, so that you don't have to work out from scratch what you are doing every day; depending on the circumstances, try to keep in touch with your supervisor so you have some reality check on your progress; try to build and maintain networks of friends, both those involved in similar work and those completely outside academia; try to maintain a balanced life and don't give up all your other interests - sports, hobbies, exercise, etc. - in the mistaken belief you have to devote yourself to your PhD in all waking moments; periodically review what you've done well and try to identify specific tasks you can do now that you can do successfully and thus boost your confidence; if you feel bored or unmotivated, try to change what you're concentrating on at the present and shift to another aspect of your work; take the opportunity of attending seminars, going to conferences, presenting papers so you have some objective measure of your work against other people's. If you really find that nothing you try works and that it is getting to the point where you detest what you're doing, then seek help from a counsellor, adviser or doctor. One useful attribute at any stage of doing a PhD is the ability to laugh at yourself. Paradoxical situations arise - you might be so sophisticated in a very high profile field, yet be relatively inexperienced and dependent in some other area, or be relatively hopeless with trivial yet important, practical things.

	Dealing with isolation.
	Clarifying your real reasons for doing this degree.
	Clarifying expectations.
	Learning about your rights and obligations as a student.
	Taking stock of where you are.
	Each time I finish a chapter or major section I say 'great'. But how can I make myself start again and get on with the next part?
	I've spent months trying to get my experiments to work or to get the data I need but time is running out. What can I do?