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Today I submitted the first of many official ‘milestones’ associated with my PhD.

Titled the ‘Core Component of the Structured Program’ (or CCSP), the first milestone involves a series of administrative tasks (the usual ethics agreements, data storage policies as well as professional development goals), but its major component is a 5000 word research proposal.

The proposal is meant to outline your research topic, your rationale for pursuing it as well as your methodology and chapter outline. Fortunately, I am undertaking my PhD studying a topic similar to that on which I completed my Honours thesis. As such, while an entirely new piece of work (I promise!), completing some of the background reading associated with writing the research proposal was relatively straightforward.

Having completed (and hopefully passed) this first milestone, I think it is a good time to reflect on the process so far. I have been at it for six months. I have managed to cope with the disruptions associated with COVID-19 – working from home, a stressed university sector resulting in academics and other HDRs evincing at least some level of despair – fairly well. I have developed a good working from home routine and actually found the time at the beginning of the crisis, when we had little option but to be at home all the time, to be my most productive six or so weeks of the process so far.

I hope that I will be able to continue this level of productivity as we slowly begin to transition back towards a fuller campus life. I am already starting to see how other opportunities – paper submissions for conferences, scheduling, undertaking and transcribing interviews for example – can, while certainly worthwhile, eat into valuable thesis time.

Having said that, the advice I hear suggests these ‘extra-curriculars’ are perhaps even more important than the quality of your thesis in determining your job prospects and renown in your field. As such, I think the next phases of my PhD will be all about finding the right balance between the two.