These are my three, very simple and very
important recommendations, to students thinking about doing a PhD:
1) Think
about what topics you are really deeply interested in. You have to be as
passionate about knowing new things in your research area as you are about
football or hiphop or food, whatever your favourite pastime is. Because doing
research is long days, hard work, often frustrating, and you need a real
passion to help motivate you through periods when work is not going the way you
want.
2) Search
the internet to find out who does research in the topics that interest you. See
in which institutions they are, which projects they have going on, what
research methods they are using. Think about whether this is a place where you
can imagine working and think about whom specifically it may be worthwhile
contacting. Don’t limit yourself to your own university - moving city or even
moving country is part of the experience of becoming a researcher and mobility
is generally rewarded in research.
3) Send an
e-mail where you present yourself and your interests, and explain why you are writing,
to the persons you have decided you may want to work with. It’s a good idea to
attach your CV so that the person who you are contacting also gets some more
formal information about your qualifications. Be specific about what you want (To
gain research experience? To do a PhD? To learn more about a discipline?) and
make sure you know who you are writing to, what they work with and why you are
contacting them.
Good luck!
