PhD Voice

A PhD is all about learning. And because most of us have only ever learnt through having our heads in a book or having someone tell us things, we aren’t really aware of any other ways of learning. In fact, one of the greatest motivators we’ve ever had to learn is, “I need to pass this exam!”

But one method of learning that seems contradictory is to teach. It sounds strange because if you’re supposed to teach something, shouldn’t you already know it??

But, anyone who has taught before knows the dread that pushes you to prepare for your lectures – “What if someone asks me a question about this and I don’t know the answer? What if I look like a putz?”

That dread is far more motivating to learn than any dread of failing an exam! And through that motivation, you start going through your head every question you can think of that you might be asked. Then, you rush around trying to find the answers. For those questions you don’t find the answers to, you figure them out yourself.

During this whole process, you learn so much and at an accelerated rate because in an exam, you have one person asking you questions, but in a lecture you have hundreds of mouths all chirping at you. That’s far more challenging to handle. Hence, why you end up learning your subject SOOO much better.

But that’s not the only thing that makes you learn your subject inside-out. Another aspect is that you figure out how to explain each thing in simple terms that follows a logical progression. It forces you to cut out the superfluous parts and focus on the fundamentals and boil everything down to an easy-to-understand idea.

If you’re successful at this, then you won’t get anyone asking for clarification. But the great thing is that even if you’re not completely successful at this, then you will get questions and you will then have to work your explanation until it does make sense to them. By the end of the lecture, you will definitely understand your subject better.

So, through teaching your subject, your understanding of it skyrockets and that will help you with your PhD because you’ve now gone to the next level.

If you get the chance to teach your subject during your PhD, then you should seriously consider taking it because you will learn as much about your subject as your students will…probably even more.

If you want to read more about how to make your PhD better, read our book, “100 Tips For Doing Your PhD” where we cover this, as well as 99 other tips to make other aspects of your PhD, like staying motivated, getting a job, and having a good work-life balance much easier and better.

Read it here:

Ebook: https://phdvoice.org/product/100-tips-for-doing-your-phd/

Paperback: https://www.amazon.com/dp/B0BXMYVYCF

(We also translated it into Arabic here: https://phdvoice.org/product/100-tips-for-doing-your-phd-arabic/

And Spanish here:

Ebook:https://phdvoice.org/product/100consejos-para-hacer-tu-doctorado/

Paperback: https://www.amazon.com/dp/B0C1DN9ZG4)