Sometimes, I feel that doing 6 years PhD (yeep its 6 years) is quite tiring. How come it will not give you that feeling, when you need to do research as well as consultancy projects in the same time. In my case, both of my research and consultancy projects are very different, so I need to think twice for doing both of them. The consultancy project in here related to the statistical data analysis for company/industry/government/NGO/non-statisticians-PhD. This year is my 4th year of PhD, meaning that I still have 2 more years to go. In the same time, the jealously comes to my mind, since my colleagues, with the same entry year, with 4 years PhD period, will be defense in this year. I am gonna be alone.. haha
Other feeling that also sometimes comes up is boring moments. I am just a human, sometimes I fed up with what I've done, and want to finish everything as soon as possible, just like others PhD students do ... hehehe. Now I know why everyone disagree with my decisions when I was considering to take this PhD project in the first place. They said that 4 years Phd is hard enough, no need to add 2 more years.. Hahaha.. But in the end, I still took this opportunity after I have gotten permission from my parent.
However, I think Allah really knows what the best for me. Why Allah give me this opportunity to do this kind of PhD. Yes Allah absolutely knows me very well. I am very moody person, when I am doing something, it always depend on my mood (though not quite good :p ) . I need to find the right moment to do all my jobs. When "the perfect" time came for me to do my research, I diligently finished it very fast. But when I got stuck in my research project, I delayed it until I got the solution on it. In these times, my consultancy projects are the perfect getaways. I could do these consultancy projects while thinking about the solution of my research. In these periods I felt so grateful that I have other projects to do, instead of only doing research projects. The other way around when I felt so lazy doing the consultancy, my research is the perfect getaway. However, this moody action sometimes need to be forced so that I could finish everything by the deadlines. Perhaps, If I only doing the ordinary PhD, the research project only, I will be very stressful more than what I felt.
Me and CN Tower, Toronto.
One of the positive sides doing this kind of PhD is that I do gained a lot of new knowledge in statistics from the consultancy projects that sometime the topic is very new for me, I never knew it before in my bachelor or master degree. The statistician networking also has been built in this case. Not only related to my research but also outside area, just like networking with statisticians in industry, government, NGO or from other university.
So, here I am now. Almost finish my 4th year of PhD with: 5 research papers (3 published; 1 submitted; 1 in revised process), 1 new research project, 10 finished consultancy projects ( 3 very big
projects - 2 up to 3 years time scale; 5 medium projects - 3 months time scale; 2 small projects - 2 weeks time scale), 3 new consultancy projects. Alhamdulillah.
The journey of my PhD is still coming, please pray for me so that I
can finish next year (yes, I know I still have 2 more years, but I do hope that I can finish earlier), Insyaa Allah... hohoho ..(although Mr Tiring and Boring will always come),
