How does studying for a PhD in your respective fields differ from undergraduate degrees?

Question: How does studying for a PhD in your respective fields differ from undergraduate degrees?
- Keywords:
  PhD
Asked by anon-329181 on 10 Jun 2022.
- Ryan Devlin answered on 10 Jun 2022:
  
  There is a lot more freedom with a PhD compared to undergraduate education. A PhD is very much like a job, where it is just you and this broad question that you are going to try and answer over the next 3/4 years, and that is largely independently driven. Whilst undergraduate education is still largely driven by a timetable of lectures, workshops and assessments, a PhD is driven by you and the timetable that you set. This comes with its own challenges, as you have to be incredibly good at time/resource management, but otherwise it is fantastic to have that freedom.
- Rachel Harris answered on 10 Jun 2022:
  
  Duing a degree, you take classes and turn in individual assignments so it’s a lot more like college or school. During a PhD you have one question or topic that you have to look into over 4+ years. So its a bit more like having an unlimited project where you have the freedom to look into whatever you want. There is only 1 “assignment” which would be your thesis, where you write about everything you learnt. Its assessed by a committee of 3 people, who question you on what you wrote about for a few hours to make sure you wrote it and that you understand it and can apply your knowledge to answer their questions. After that, you become a doctor (PhD means doctor of philosophy).
  
  Specific to biochemistry, doing a PhD involves a lot more lab work and a fair bit less reading than doing a PhD in a humanities subject like history or philosophy. Instead of writing for 4 years, you tend to write up in the last few months. People tend to do their PhD straight after their degree/master’s in STEM subjects, whereas it’s more common to do a humanities PhD later in life I think.
- Karin Purshouse answered on 10 Jun 2022:
  
  The main difference is the independence – if you don’t do it, nothing happens! Whereas with undergrad you have a schedule, a course, a curriculum, you have lectures, seminars, coursework and exams.
  With a PhD you don’t know at the beginning what it will look like at the end. You have to make a plan, and suggest what you expect to find, but I am yet to find anyone who’s PhD has proceeded exactly as they expected! It’s fantastically creative, and as others have said, manage your time and be organised. I think the thing I wasn’t expecting was how sociable it is. Although only you know your project inside out and backwards, I am constantly asking other people for help and advice.
- Annabel Black answered on 13 Jun 2022:
  
  I finished my undergraduate degree just over a year ago and have been in my PhD for ~9 months now and the main difference I have noticed is (like the others have mentioned) freedom. This was also the biggest difference going from school to undergrad, you have to manage your own time and be realistic with organising yourself! While this can be hard and you can’t always rely on pure self-motivation (some days science is the last thing you want to do!) I’ve found getting into a self-imposed routine with my work day/week has been the most helpful thing in keeping me on track. Learning to self-manage takes a lot of time and you come to understand what does/doesn’t work for you (which will be totally different to your friends/colleagues). Hopefully by the time you undertake a PhD you have a good idea at how to make the most of your time and you can apply this to your work week as you build your project.
- Chelsea Gerada answered on 13 Jun 2022:
  
  I look at undergrad degrees as a chance to explore what your interested in, in a more broad way. For example I picked medical science because I was interested in the way the body works. It was through this degree that I found out that I loved immunology but wasn’t as into anatomy/biochemistry so that then lead me to pursue a PhD in infectious diseases and immunology. The PhD was much more specific there was no course work only a research project that you eventually write a thesis on. In the thesis you explain what question you were trying to answer with your research, how you have gone about this and the results you got.
- Maria Peiris Pages answered on 13 Jun 2022:
  
  It is so different! During your undergrad degree you study the different subjects, you do your practical classes and then at the end you have exams to prove you have learned the topic. When you do a PhD you have your own project, which you have the freedom to develop at your own pace and criteria (with your supervisor’s help). You can design the experiments you’ll perform, you do mistakes as well, but then you learn from then and next time you plan a bit better, you analyse your results, you present them to your lab mates. It is quite flexible and the fact that the project is yours makes all the difference to me! Is like taking care of something very special that belongs to you and exists thanks to you!
- Sophie Richardson answered on 14 Jun 2022:
  
  Undegrad is more coursework, exams, lectures and studying as you do in school.
  
  A PhD can be treated more like a job. You have a project that you manage, do experiments in the lab, have meetings to discuss experiments/collaborations and more. There are still some seminars/talks that are like lectures, but these are all on things that are happening in research now, and not what’s happened in the past. A PhD is very independent compared to undergrad in that you decide what you do rather than your course telling you what to do, which is really nice but can be a bit overwhelming at first!

Question: How does studying for a PhD in your respective fields differ from undergraduate degrees?

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