Managing the Academic Phase Transitions

Most of times, life feels like a continuous process going from one point in time to the next in a smooth fashion. However, there are several points in time when this smooth flow is broken and one has to go through very discontinuous jumps or phase transitions. These transitions bring in many unforeseen challenges which one is usually not well prepared to handle. These jumps can be heart-wrenching for those who are unable to handle the new situations, but can also be a great opportunity for others who were lagging behind in the previous phase of life. There are many people who do well in the early stages of life but loose out over time, and one of the main reasons for this is their inability to maintain success across various phase transitions. We should not assume that what made us successful in one phase of life will naturally lead to success in the next phase. It is very important to prepare ourselves accordingly and acquire new skills as and when required. In life outside college, these phase transitions can be quite unpredictable and so that much harder to be prepared for. But within the academic system, these phase transitions are actually quite well defined upto the senior professional level.

The first phase transition comes after 10th, when most good students are expected to start working towards cracking a professional examination at the end of their 12th class. Then the next phase transition is from 12th to college life, where often there is too much freedom than what one can handle. For most people, academic life ends with a bachelors or masters degree but for those who choose to pursue a PhD, thats another huge academic phase transition. A PhD is nothing like usual academics pursuits and requires a totally different approach. Most people who complete a PhD naturally look for faculty positions, but are again seldom aware of the totally new set of challenges it brings along! We will take these four major academic phase transitions one by one and try to analyse how one can be well prepared to handle these.

Problem of choice beyond 10th

Till the 10th class, everyone more or less studies the same subjects and the only objective is to score well in the board exams. But beyond that, there is just too much choice. Even if one has decided to go for engineering, there are just too many different colleges to aim for, which require very different preparation strategies. Should one prepare hard for JEE and hence, move to Kota? Or should one focus on the 12th board exams and study at home or take local tuitions? If someone is good with both Maths and Biology, there is the added burden of choice between engineering and medical! 

There are really no easy solutions to these problems of choice, but what is certain is that those who solely focus on cracking the entrance examination by any means often have grave difficulties at college. There are many cases of students who did well in JEE and got a seat at an IIT, but ended up failing in the first year courses itself. Part of it is surely due to too much freedom at college which leads to neglect of studies, but a large part is also because too much focus on cracking entrance exams makes our abilities to be very narrowly focussed on objective type of questions. So no matter which professional career you choose to pursue, try to develop a broader set of problem solving abilities. One good way to do it is to solve problems which require several steps of calculations and cannot be done by applying some shortcuts. Working on slightly abstract problems in physics and mathematics can also be very helpful even if you can't arrive at a solution.

Unlimited freedom at college

IITs are great not really because great things are taught in their classrooms, but essentially because they bring together the brightest students and give them lot of freedom to pursue their interests. Though this freedom is a boon for many and leads them to develop into shining stars, it can also be a curse for many others who get totally drowned in its whirlpool. The same holds for many other colleges too. At this stage, students stay in college hostels and so are not under the direct supervision of their parents. Also, the faculty members at reputed institutions are usually very busy in their research work, and so are unable to pay too much attention to the students' welfare. Given this situation, it is very hard for the students to restrain themselves, especially after 2-3 years of very hard austere preparation for the entrance examinations. 

It is often said that the first step in solving a problem is to admit and understand that the problem exists. When students prepare for the entrance examination, they are often told that their whole future success is going to depend on its outcome. Many of those who fail feel doomed and many of those who succeed loose all control. This is the first thing that needs to change. Students and parents need to realise that life goes through many phase transitions and success/failure at one stage does not automatically imply that the same will happen in the future. 

The other important thing is for students to develop an honest and open relationship with their parents. Of course, one cannot discuss everything with their parents, but there should not be a deliberate attempt to hide. It is also not that parents have solutions to all problems, but honesty in our  close relationships goes much deeper than merely speaking the truth. It helps us in being honest with ourselves, which is actually the only shield we have against the ever changing life situations.

PhD and unstructured academics

The most important difference between PhD and other educational degrees is that in a PhD, there are no well defined structures that one can prepare for. Of course, there are some course requirements in a PhD, but those usually get over in the 1st year itself and beyond that its all between the student and his/her supervisor. There is no book with a list of problems to be solved and no classmates to compare our progress with. At best one could have a few students to discuss interesting problems with. But whats interesting to one could be meaningless to another. Whats important to one may be totally a waste of time for another. The only parameter to gauge success in a PhD is perhaps publications in good journals/conferences, but there's no guarantee that the work one has done for 2-3 years or sometimes more will eventually get accepted for publication. And this can be a nerve wrecking experience! Getting good grades in courses is one thing but being able to do original research that is valued by the community requires a very different kind of skills and thinking abilities. A PhD is in some sense the preparation ground of future faculty members who have the ability to work independently and guide other students. Hence, it is very important for PhD students to slowly develop these abilities before graduating. 

Firstly, it is necessary for these students to develop a deeper understanding of the subjects related to their research area. It is not enough to be able to solve few problems given at the end of every chapter in a book. They need to be aware of the deeper implications of all the important concepts. As they say, an electron in one part of the universe cannot move without moving every other electron! All scientific concepts are intricately linked with each other and they must learn to uncover these links on their own. 

Secondly, and perhaps most importantly, they must learn the art of agreeable disagreement. In school and college, we usually believe everything that is written in our books and told by our teachers to be true. But as we go deeper, we realise that most statements have loopholes which are not apparent on a superficial reading. It is recognising these loopholes that actually lead to original ideas, which eventually lead to publications in reputed avenues. Here, the role of agreeable disagreements is very important since just because one person sees a loophole in a certain statement does not imply that it is apparent to others also. It often requires very delicate thinking to make others see things from our point of view. And for that to happen, we must also be willing to see things from other person's point of view. 

Unlimited freedom, once again!

Though a PhD is quite unstructured and gives lot of room for exploration, it is still done under the supervision of an experienced person. But the scenario completely changes when one becomes a faculty at a reputed institution. Once again, a hallmark of a great institution is that it gives lot of freedom to its faculty members to pursue their research interests, while at the same time expecting certain outcomes at regular intervals. Several faculty members make good use of this freedom to solve important research problems, but others loose track quite quickly and end up becoming somewhat unproductive for the rest of their lives. One way to avoid this problem is to develop new collaborations and maintain strong interaction with people we have worked with earlier. Our institutions evaluate our performance on an annual basis, by which time the damage is perhaps already done. It is collaborators who keep each other active on a daily basis by expecting a certain work to be done in a certain time frame.

Another problem is that faculty members often start depending too much on their students and stop doing research on their own. That may not be a problem in certain research areas which get good PhD students, but many other research areas, specially theoretical ones, do not have this luxury. And in theoretical areas, it is actually quite common for senior researchers even at the world's leading institutions to work together without involvement of any students. It is important to realise that a faculty position is not an award given for previous work done, but a responsibility given with hope of good future returns. Of course, we should not start running after numbers and forget everything else, but it is also important for some aspects of our progress to be measurable. And here the initial years as a faculty member play an important role. If we set the right tone and pace of work initially, it usually carries through for a long time. But if we get lazy and comfortable in our cocoon, the larvae never really turns into a butterfly!