​So you’ve been offered the opportunity to become a PhD candidate. Congratulations! That really is one of the harder parts of your academic career, so you should be proud of reaching this milestone. You stood out from a high level of competition, and you should remember how valued you now feel by your new PhD supervisors. Well done.

Once that PhD studentship is offered, I’ve seen many people online asking, “what can I do to prepare for a PhD?”, and it got me thinking about a fun-filled six months I had before I moved to Germany to start my own PhD in 2016.

Here are six pieces of advice I would give to any upcoming PhD candidate:

​My name is Chris Thompson, and before I was eventually successful in my pursuit for a PhD scholarship in 2016, I spent a long time trying to get to that end goal! I had many unsuccessful applications, interview invitations, and a good few “nearly moments”.

In this short article I will use my experience to guide you through your own search for a PhD. There is no magic solution, but there are many simple things you can consider doing to give yourself a better chance of being successful. 

My name is Chris Thompson, and between 2016-2019 I was a PhD student in Saarbrücken (Germany), and Sydney (Australia). My thesis title was “Mental Fatigue in Football”. Overall I spent just over two years in Germany, and six months in Australia, which proved to be the cliché “rollercoaster experience” you hear many a PhD student talk about! In this short article I will discuss the pros and cons of completing a PhD abroad.