Dr Daragh Hill

The pandemic didn’t come at a good time for anyone, but my overriding pandemic challenge was somewhat unusual: figuring out how to finish a PhD.

In Ireland we went into lockdown at the end of March 2020 and my submission deadline was the end of June. In March, my thesis was in OK shape to be completed on time; my first research paper was submitted, the labwork was finished for a second chapter, and some small experiments remained for a third, with one final results chapter planned. Initially after the shock of lockdown, a few weeks to concentrate on writing my thesis didn’t sound too bad. No distractions, not tempted to jump into the lab to avoid writing. If lockdown was only weeks long this could have been a true writing retreat.

It began as I expected, writing up and waiting to return to the lab. As it became clear that we were unlikely to return to work anytime soon and my deadline began to creep up, it became time to look for other ways to complete my final chapter. “The perfect PhD is a finished PhD” was something I had been told but never really thought too much about. Now, it resonates. If I had been given another year I would still be doing experiments to “finish” my PhD, but I wouldn’t actually be finished.

The first of many arrangements of my bedroom/ “temporary” office

My planned final chapter was to be a continuation of my first published paper, looking further into application of a new bacteriocin, gallocin D. This was going to be impossible without going back to the lab and would take considerable time. In this paper we had discovered bacteriocin gene-shuffling between two species, and included both bioinformatic and wet lab experiments. In what reads here as a very simple and logical decision, it actually took a lot of long discussions and ideas, to come up with a completely in silico-based follow up chapter. I am by no means a bioinformatician but over the course of my PhD had done some work annotating whole genomes and comparing them, and there was potentially interesting work that could be done outside the lab. This chapter ended up being very rewarding, not only due to its slightly panicked and exciting conception, but because of some really interesting phenomena we found (fingers crossed, paper pending!). Looking back, if we had remained in the lab, I would have done my planned experiments and never have yielded these current interesting results.

This all sounds great written down and tied into a kind-of neat bow. But to talk only about the science side of this doesn’t really give an accurate image. It doesn’t capture the stress, uncertainty, and difficulty of writing up while in a lockdown. The lockdown in Ireland was strict: in late March we were allowed a 2km radius from our house for exercise and no contact between different households. Only by mid-May did this began to slowly ease to allow outdoor meetings and on June 29th the slow reopening of hairdressers, gyms, and churches. I was in the lab for the last time on March 16th and submitted my thesis at the end of this strict lockdown, on June 30th. So for most of this time when I was finishing this arduous and uncertain work I did not see or spend time with my family, boyfriend, or friends. I lived in a shared house with some friends so was lucky that I had great people to spend time with after a day of writing. I don’t think I’m alone to have found this strict lockdown like some version of Groundhog Day at my desk, unsure if I had written or deleted more words each day. The lack of chatting to colleagues about work was greatly missed, I never fully appreciated the benefit of coffee chats. Explaining your study to friends and colleagues always seems to highlight areas you hadn’t considered and can provide valuable insight into a study—and that was missing for my final chapters.

After a year of various degrees of lockdown, I’m sure most students reading this will have adapted but here are some tips for writing your thesis from my experience. This includes some advice I took, and some I should have taken!

Just after my viva in august with my parents.

· I won’t be the first, or the last, to say this but: write. Whether it’s a paragraph for an introduction or your methods for each chapter. I was told this many times and really appreciated the places where I had taken this advice, not starting with a blank page was invaluable. You can plan and procrastinate writing and keep doing experiments, but at the end of the day you have to stop at some point. Try not to wait until the final months to write it all.

· If you don’t know where the experiment is going, stop and think. Ideally there is a planned publication behind everything you do (this advice I am still trying to fully incorporate in my own work).

· Travel! Apply for conferences where you can present your work.

· Ask for help when you need it, everyone does.

· Keep a backup of everything. I had a very stressful week in April when I spilled water on my laptop. It was completely fried, so I had to order a new one, and thanks to lockdown it had to be posted to me from a shop only down the road. I always backed up weekly so didn’t lose anything too important. In case you don’t, keep a backup!

I successfully defended my thesis in August 2020, virtually via Teams, and graduated, again virtually, in March 2021. To sum up, I’ll reiterate the best advice I can:

The perfect PhD is a finished PhD. Especially during a pandemic.

Daragh Hill is currently a post doc in APC Microbiome Ireland in Prof Paul Ross’ lab, studying bacterial secondary metabolites and their potential application in food and medicine.

Lab to Laptop: How to finish a PhD in a pandemic.