The Joys of a PhD life.

Hi, it’s been a while since I last wrote any thing (and this is getting to be a familiar opening sentence!) but work has been dominating my life lately and thus I have not been doing much other than work. So I thought, why not write about work!
Most of you are aware that I do a PhD but for those of you who have a memory as short as mine be aware now that I do!
So naturally for those who have just been reminded, the question arises, what is a PhD? Hmm..let me Google that….This is what Google says: “The degree of Doctor of Philosophy, a higher degree than an Honours or Masters degree, involving at least two and a half years of supervised research resulting in a thesis. PhD graduates may call themselves “Dr"
Fair enough, but that is a mere definition. What actually happens in a PhD..especially in my PhD? Let me try and put that in perspective.
Here in the U.K a PhD is a special position to be in. We are not considered full students yet we are neither fully considered as staff….we have a position in between staff and students, or sometimes get the privileges of both depending on the situation. We have an office with individual desk space and are paid a salary or rather a stipend per month, apart from being paid for extra teaching/demonstrating duties..and have access to all staff facilities in the university…which are mainly the perks of staff, yet we get discount on bus and rail travel, discounts at various shops, and don’t have to pay taxes, which are all the perks of students!..it seems we are getting the best of both worlds!
Anyway let me try to enlighten you all on what exactly my PhD is all about….
The official title of my PhD is : “Investigation of microbial probiotic effects using whole cell bioluminescent bacterial biosensors” but don’t be put off by the hi-fi terminology..I`ll explain. Put into human language that would mean that I try to study the mechanisms of probiotics using bacteria that emit light. Now don’t ask me what probiotics are, because if you haven’t already heard of it , you will soon find it barging into your life. It is the future of the health food market! Well, probiotics are “friendly bacteria” which are incorporated into various food products in the hope that they will reach the intestine, and establish themselves there and produce wonderful health effects from the gut. If you need more details, watch this video. It is the introduction to a presentation that I had to give at the faculty recently.

Some of you must `ve raised an eyebrow or two when I mentioned that bacteria emit light. Well not all bacteria do….hmm..like these bacteria that I`ve grown on a plate..These are normal looking bacteria. But there are certain bacteria, especially bacteria that live in the sea which do emit light. Like fireflies do. But these days science has progressed to an advanced level and we can isolate the genes responsible for light production in these light producing bacteria and we can put them into other bacteria and make them emit light too! ..which is the kind of bacteria that I’m working with. The ability of these bacteria to emit light makes my research so much easier as normal bacteria by themselves are hard to see and the light gives me an easily measurable commodity.
O.K all that said and done, I bet a lot of you are curious to know a bit more on how PhD life is…when I`ve been asked that I`ve often said..Get up in the morning..go to lab, do experiments, get data…sit in office..process data and write it up..come back in the evening..have dinner and go to sleep!..next day repeat all that again.!! But actually it’s not that monotonous. Research life is what I`d choose again if I were to do it all over again. It is exciting and stimulating and as long as I’m making progress with the research I feel like on top of the world.
At UWE, our research lab is a big space separated by work tables..and although it could easily accommodate loads of researchers or students, a jumble of assorted lab equipment and exotically designed experiments tend to take up more space than one would imagine.

But in spite of the chaos that my lab seems to be I rather enjoy the atmosphere in the lab and it is quite nice to be among other PhD students all immersed in their own experiments and going about like busy bees with their own experiments.
Anyway….however nice the lab maybe, It is even better that at the end of the day I have somewhere else to retreat to..and that’s where my office comes in.

10 of us, all in different stages of our PhD share an office, and thereby it makes for interesting conversation to share our common and not so common experiences with each other. With so many of us being in the same office it also makes it easy to arrange social activities such as movies, sports activities and leisure trips together.
As someone once told me, it is a very unique minded person who chooses to do a PhD and the educational system acts like a sieve to filter out others and concentrate such people in clusters in a university. I quite agree, as despite the diversity in our office and lab, we are on quite a similar wavelength. For now my research is progressing well, and I’m enjoying it. I hope it will remain so in the years to come !

P.S.
….But having said that I must admit that i`m probably on a high on the phd motivation graph as shown hilariously by these cartoons from PhD comics.