My family doctor did a PhD in molecular biology before deciding he probably didn’t want a competitive career as a researcher in his field, and decided to do medical school and family practice instead. But he related to me his first day in the lab as a PhD student, when his distinguished new supervisor said to him “In my group students publish 2-3 papers a year, so if you don’t keep up with that you’re out.”

Guidelines vary by department and by area of research, but it’s probably safe to say that your PhD revolves around the publishable-quality research work you do. In the Quantum Optics research area at Toronto, it’s the typical expectation that you publish several papers in good-quality journals during your PhD work. It’s a pretty safe generalization that without a handful of good first-author papers, you may find it hard to get a good next-step career position, for instance a postdoc position at a national laboratory or university. If you’re aiming at industry, applying for a job that requires a PhD, it’s still true that you need to have published papers, though you might imagine trading a couple of those for an awarded patent. You should discuss your possible ambitions with your supervisor at the outset, and your supervisor can help you shape your graduate research goals so as to increase your personal career value, appropriate to your ambitions.

If it’s ‘publish or perish’ for grad students as well as their supervisors, how will it unfold for you? Different supervisors have different strengths, but all good supervisors provide members of their group with opportunity: new and important scientific ideas; special insight and subject-leading expertise; excellent research resources such as sophisticated apparatus and strong computing resources; expert collaborators; travel to conferences to present your good-quality research results. But be clear:  your supervisor will not get you your degree -- you must make your own mark on research, and it must be at least sound, though it need not necessarily be genuinely inspired or brilliant. They don’t call it a PhD ‘defense’ for nothing -- you’ll need to present, and stand up for, the science you’ve done over several years. The good news is that you will have spent several years already doing exactly that, and if you’ve done well it will seem pretty natural.

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Last update : 2015 June

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