How to Survive Your PhD: The Insider's Guide to Avoiding Mistakes, Choosing the Right Program, Working with Professors, and Just How a Person Actually Writes a 200-Page Paper

Let me start with a little back story of why I bought this book: I am currently in my 3rd year of a PhD program, and the "3rd year slump" has hit me hard. My research is frustrating. I feel alienated from my peers and my advisor/committee. After reading the reviews for this book I thought this might offer some help. I was hoping for advice on how to deal with so many of the frustrations and let downs of getting a PhD. Something inspirational, possibly even uplifting.

Nope. That is not this book.

To be frank, I spent more than half of the book rolling my eyes at various passive-aggressive quips at the author's advisor and fellow students. By the end, this felt more like a book on how to blame other people when your PhD takes much longer than you expected. Which is a pity, because I think this story had good teaching potential. I can't even begin to imagine how frustrating and disheartening it would be to work on my PhD for seven years! The author could have...Read more

This book intends to help you through your PhD. It is mainly targeted to studies in the US, so only 2/3 of the book apply to the PhD process in general. It adresses important aspects but much of the advice is very awkward: although I can kind of understand how the author got into the situation, offering money to make your PhD advisor read a first version of your thesis faster is clearly very misguided. I had a very severe moment of fremdschaemen (feeling embarassed yourseelf when watching somebody doing something embarrasing) when I read this paragraph and much of the rest of the book. Despite its strange title I recommend to read How to Survive your Doctorate (Open Up Study Skills) instead. Very good book, many important points covered. Last word: find others to talk to, almost all of them go through the same hard time. Also check out...Read more

This is a great book - I finished this book in only two days. The author breaks down the major parts of doctoral study and uses his own experiences to share what to do in order to be successful as well as "what not to do" if you want to earn a PhD. This is a timely book for me as I have submitted applications and am hoping to start on my PhD in Fall of 2010.