An Informal Research Tea Talk (1)

Historical interview: The following preserves the research experiences and personal views expressed in the original manuscript.

A new installment of the PhDSciNet Interview Series!

Many of you are probably curious, at least to some degree, about the “special” group of people we call doctoral researchers and scholars. Recently, our editor interviewed Dr. Z, who returned to China after studying in North America and now holds a university position.

This interview focuses mainly on “career advice and choices.” Join the editor as we explore Dr. Z's life in research~

PhDSciNet: Hello, Doctor. Could you briefly introduce yourself?

Dr. Z: I mainly work on biomaterials, the self-assembly of small molecules, and other multifunctional applications. I did my PhD at Waterloo from 2013 to 2018, returned to China after 2018, and have continued doing related research. We are also moving some of our research toward commercialization and have incubated a small company of our own.

PhDSciNet: Many people consider a PhD to be hard work. Did you experience substantial academic pressure during your doctorate, particularly as graduation approached? How did you deal with it?

Dr. Z: I think doctoral researchers generally experience considerable pressure. Almost every PhD student goes through a particularly stressful period. When writing your dissertation, especially, you may be working out the structure of the whole thesis while facing a tight schedule, and that can create more pressure.

I spent very long periods sitting while writing my dissertation. One night, I had a sudden attack of gallstones and called an ambulance to take me to the hospital. After that experience, I reflected on my situation. I felt that life and research needed to be balanced. I decided to take a calmer attitude toward the dissertation and graduation, and the pressure naturally eased. Once it eased, I actually found that I was writing faster and more efficiently. I therefore think the biggest part of dealing with pressure has to come from yourself: you need to work things through in your own mind and approach everyday events, including doctoral graduation, with a calm attitude. The process is a form of personal development. Beyond learning specialist knowledge, your training teaches you how to overcome difficulties and balance pressures in life and work. After graduating, I think you may handle things with less pressure and impatience than before.

PhDSciNet: Different people may deal with pressure differently. When your psychological stress was at its greatest, did you seek help from anyone else?

Dr. Z: I felt I could manage on my own, because I tend to take a fairly relaxed attitude. I thought that if I really could not finish, I would extend my studies. That was my mindset at the time, and I did extend them by half a year. Later, I felt that as long as I could complete the work successfully, it was all worthwhile. At that point, I had not reached a stage where I needed outside help. I felt I was okay and could fully cope with the pressure myself.

PhDSciNet: We often hear the saying, “Do not ask a doctoral student when they will graduate.” Graduation seems to be a sensitive issue for many PhD students. Did you set yourself a deadline or a standard for deciding when you could graduate?

Dr. Z: At the time, I was honestly muddling through. Looking back, I did not have particularly clear goals. I thought, first, finish the PhD, and second, find a job. Finding work was not especially difficult then. There were many universities around my hometown, including in Yangzhou, Nanjing, and Zhenjiang, and their employment packages were fairly similar. I therefore thought it would be enough to find a university close to home. My parents were also urging me to return and get married. Some things happened that made me want to return sooner, so I did not have an ambitious plan or a firm idea that I had to achieve something specific. I simply wanted to graduate, return to China, and find an academic position. Looking back now, though, I would advise doctoral researchers who have not yet returned that, if they really want to come back to China, they could aim a little higher at the outset. That may reduce some of the difficulties they encounter later, because the environment they find after returning may not be quite what they imagined.

PhDSciNet: It seems you had decided to continue in research before graduating. Did you choose that career because you had done a PhD, or because of your enthusiasm for research?

Dr. Z: My ultimate goal in research is commercialization and translating science into practical applications, rather than simply publishing papers. Why do we have to publish now? In a sense, there is no alternative: you need to enter the field and obtain major projects. Both of my supervisors mainly worked on commercialization. They were academy fellows and may have completed dozens of commercialization projects. Through being around them, I also became interested in developing products. I wanted what we do to go beyond papers—to produce things that are useful to us. That is my ultimate goal.

PhDSciNet: We know that publishing papers is crucial for doctoral students, affecting both graduation and later employment. From your current perspective, which matters more: the practical importance of publishing or its personal, emotional significance?

Dr. Z: In terms of emotional significance, you are especially happy when you publish your first paper. It gives your confidence a boost.

I think the practical significance is quite substantial. Earlier, I did not pay much attention to publishing. While studying, I had not realized how important it was, so I did not have many papers when I was looking for work, and my options were more limited. It could be difficult to enter a Project 211 or Project 985 university, for example. My advice to current PhD students is therefore not to delay unnecessarily when conditions allow, and to publish at a reasonable pace.

Papers and projects also have considerable practical importance in China. They are connected with awards, recognition for excellence, and even salary, as well as promotion in academic rank. Their practical significance is therefore already very large.

That said, what you ultimately pursue may be the freedom to do the things you want to do. At that point, you may no longer care whether something helps you secure a promotion, because you do not need it; nor whether it earns you a little more salary. You may already be financially independent and no longer need those things. For us now, the practical significance may be substantial, but in the future I think the personal, emotional significance may matter more.

PhDSciNet: You mentioned commercializing research. Some PhD students who decide to continue in research can choose between working in industry and working at a university. Is research more efficient in a company? At universities, research has to be presented as papers, which can make the overall cycle longer. Since you have your own company, I wonder whether you have observed differences. Is industrial research really more efficient?

Dr. Z: If you join a large company—a very large company—and lead a project, the efficiency really can be high. At the institution where I did my master's degree, there was a professor who had returned from abroad. He had been a department chair at Johns Hopkins University, but later left academia altogether to become the director of research and development at a large pharmaceutical company. He was very accomplished. At the university, he had done a great deal of work that could not be commercialized.

After moving to the company, however, many of the projects he led produced drugs that reached phase I or phase II clinical trials. As I understand it, a large industrial research-and-development platform can make commercialization much more efficient. At a university, research is more oriented toward publishing papers: you need publications to sustain your group, and you also have the demanding task of training students, which you do not have in a company. Newly recruited students initially know very little, so you have to explain everything step by step and teach them hands-on. That takes a long time. If students in China are left entirely on their own, they may not be able to graduate. So I agree with your point: in a company, especially a large one, focusing on research and development can be very effective and efficient. At a university, teaching students is one of your core duties, while research is only one part of the job, rather than all of it. It therefore does not have the same efficiency as research in a company.

PhDSciNet: Do you think an industrial postdoc is a good choice for a doctoral graduate?

Dr. Z: I do not think so. Doing a postdoc in a company and joining it as a project leader are completely different things. Rather than doing an industrial postdoc, I think you would be better off doing a postdoc at a university such as Tsinghua or Peking University. A company postdoc is still an employee working under someone else. There is a leader directing your work, your responsibilities may be limited, and the efficiency is entirely different from that of someone who leads a project. Those are not the same situations. For someone considering an industrial postdoc, I would instead recommend a university postdoc: you would have more freedom and learn more.

This installment of the interview comes to a close here. We hope you have taken something away from it~

In the next installment, we will interview Dr. Z about “the roles and relationship of supervisors and students.” Stay tuned!