Goodbye Comfort Zone! - Oluwasegun Kayode

Peaks and Troughs

A PhD journey is rife with peaks and troughs of varying heights, spanning over varying time periods. I am currently coming down from what feels to me like a really big peak – I have developed a method for creating and assessing the effects of bone marrow lesions (BMLs) in finite element models of the tibiofemoral joint (super yay!). However, that’s just one part of my PhD, I am currently working on characterising the mechanical properties of the BMLs which involves a lot of experimental work in the laboratories (Boo!).
Over the last year I have built up expertise and confidence in the computational aspect of my work, and I must say I have gotten quite comfortable in it. But to finish this PhD, I have to leave the cushy comfort zone of computational work and wander into the wilderness that is the laboratories.

For motivation, I cast my mind back to the beginning of the PhD when I didn’t have any confidence in my computational skills. I am comforted by how much I have grown in my abilities and how much I have learnt over the last two years. So, bring it on experimental work! I am geared up and ready to make fertile ground out of this wilderness.

Plan - Write - Submit

As I am now in the third year of my PhD, I have been thinking a lot about the actual thesis and how it’s going to get written. Looking at theses written by previous PhD students, I still find it hard to wrap my head around the fact that I am expected to produce one of those in next year and few months. But as with everything else, adequate planning can turn a seemingly insurmountable task into a piece of cake. Therefore, I am working on creating a good thesis structure and writing bits of my thesis as I go along so I am not left with too much to write towards the end of the PhD.