Question: what has been the hardest milestone in your career, do you wish you could've over come it a different way?

Alex Reid answered on 15 Nov 2018:

Hi 569memp34 thank you for the thoughtful question. Without a doubt the hardest thing I have ever done in my career was get my PhD qualification. This is the qualification that lets me call myself ‘Dr Reid’ (and it is different from the qualification your medical doctor will have). To do a PhD in the UK it takes you years of work (four in my case) and there was an enormous amount of pressure I put on myself. In psychology you have to run a series of experiments that address a common theme, and then write that up into a book called a thesis. Mine was 80,000 words long. I then had an exam where I was grilled by two high ranking academics on the quality of my work for 2.5 hours. All that work, years of stress, was focused like a needle on that one moment. I slept for two days after it was all over. A big reason I found doing my PhD very stressful is because I still hadn’t learned how to manage my time properly or establish a good work/life balance. It is important to do this because you can get very burnt out. This will not only be true for a PhD, but all sorts of work (so look after yourself). I learned so much during my PhD I could probably it again in half the time. This is not a bad thing, it just means I have learned a lot during the process (including when to take time off!).