The Thesis Commandments

The essential things to keep in mind when doing a thesis are found on this page. This page is written following the testimonies of young doctors and must be read with all the necessary distance, without taking the commandments at face value.

The commandments are :

1. All theses are different
2. The supervisors before the subject
3. Writing a thesis is a difficult moment
4. Alumni only remember the good times
5. Talking about your problems
6. Making the most of the first year
7. Take some vacations
8. Thesis is an education
9. Go to conferences

Each thesis is a particular combination between the PhD student, the subject, the supervisors and a lot of parameters related to life in general. This means that all the testimonies of people who have done a thesis are particular cases, so they do not represent a generality. Some had problems with their experiment, their data, their supervision, some went abroad for a while, others had no problem for 3 years. Moreover, some did their thesis in 3 years or less while others needed 5 years. Some coded a lot at the beginning of their thesis while others did bibliography, and the situation was sometimes reversed in the middle of the thesis, but not always.

The testimonies on the realization of a thesis are therefore always to be put into perspective and to be listened to with hindsight. Just like the rest of the commandments on this page.

The personal and professional relationship with the supervisor is more important than the scientific subject. If you have already started your thesis and you are “suffering” from the supervision, work first and foremost to improve this situation between the people, even if it means making concessions on the scientific content. This does not mean that you should not defend your scientific ideas against your supervisor. On the other hand, having problems with the scientific subject is much less problematic than having relational problems with your supervisor.

Despite the first commandment, a constant in the testimonies that is very generally true concerns the difficulty of writing a thesis at the end of the PhD.

Writing a thesis is indeed a very often complicated moment that lasts on average 6 months (an average with a large standard deviation that can easily take you to 1 year, and rarely to 3 months). It is like a long-distance race, so you have to attack this moment with a lot of energy, by sleeping well beforehand. But even if you are well prepared, it is quite possible that the moment will be unpleasant ; it is a test to pass in order to become more competent and to take a step back on your own work.

However, the writing of a thesis, once passed, is often seen as a moment where one surpasses oneself and where one discovers new limits, notably scientific. It is therefore a challenge from which there is good to take and not only a hard moment imagined to test your writing skills.

You may meet former PhD students who can tell you about their time in the PhD program. It is very likely that the only memories they can come up with are good ones, and this probability increases with the number of years after the thesis.

This is not necessarily due to a desire for censorship and even people of good faith will happily talk about the thesis, with the exception of the writing period (see Commandment number 3). This may be due to several factors:

• In its entirety, the thesis is a rather nice moment, both scientifically and humanly.
• Compared to the pressure one can have afterwards (in academia or in industry), the 3 years of research dedicated to a subject offered by the thesis are well regarded
• Compared to writing a thesis and in retrospect, the intermediate difficulties of a thesis seem much easier than when they were experienced live

If you come across a former student who explains to you that the thesis is great while you feel like you have one problem after another (you feel like you are not progressing, your experiments are not going as planned, your results are not what you expected, etc.), it does not mean that you are less talented. At your level, your worries are real problems and when you have time to step back from them, you will certainly realize that they were not that bad.

It is possible that during your thesis you will have to face problems, either scientific problems with your subject (the impression of not finding a solution, of being stuck, of not understanding things well, of not having data or examples, of having problems with the experiments or the results, etc.) or relational problems with your supervisor or some of your colleagues. Whatever the cause, don't brood over your professional problems and don't hesitate to talk about them around you.

Scientifically, you will surely have the impression that you are working alone and this is generally true: you are scientifically isolated. However, this is not a reason to isolate yourself socially, quite the contrary. If you encounter problems, even if they are very technical and very specific, it is very likely that some colleagues can help you at least partially or at least listen to you. Sometimes, taking the time to verbalize and explain your problems allows you to find a solution. Of course, you can also talk openly with your supervisors.

If you encounter relational problems with your supervisors, whatever the problem is, also take the time to talk about it calmly, first with your supervisors and then with your colleagues, whether it is the permanent staff, the post-docs, or the other PhD students. Here again, talking quickly about your problems often helps to avoid aggravating a situation or at least to get moral support. You can also turn to people outside your direct relational environment to get an external point of view, such as doctoral student representatives or members of the CSI.

The beginning of the thesis, which can be likened to the first year of the thesis, is a time when your task is to begin to grasp your subject. This is a time-consuming activity, especially thinking time, which means filling your head with ideas from the literature and letting your brain macerate with these ideas long enough to see them clearly.

During these relatively quiet moments, take advantage of them to do everything that is asked/proposed to you in parallel to your thesis such as doctoral training, all your administrative papers (even outside the thesis) or participation in summer/winter schools, etc. The idea is to do these activities as long as you have enough time and free mind, which will certainly not be the case anymore in the second or last year of your thesis.

Consider taking real breaks from time to time during the thesis. This means taking a vacation by really leaving the scientific work aside to recharge your mind and regain your strength. As for how to occupy this vacation time, we leave you in charge

In a thesis, you remain a student (this is reflected in the English term “PhD. student”). This means that you are in the thesis to learn how to become a researcher, a task that is not simple by definition. It means that confronting problems is part of the thesis process, and it is by learning to solve them that you learn to become a researcher.

However, this does not mean that you necessarily have to face these difficulties alone. As commandment number 5 indicates, if you are going to have to get through the obstacle yourself, you can do so with moral support and/or technical help from the people around you.

Finally, at the end of your thesis, you are more of a researcher than an expert in your field (although you most certainly are). This means that you are capable of doing scientific research in a computer science related topic, so don't be too edgy about your thesis topic and don't hesitate to step back.

Learning to do research is about the exchange of ideas, an exchange that takes place intensively at gatherings of researchers such as conferences. During your thesis, your supervisor should suggest that you publish your work, especially at conferences. Take advantage of these moments to present your work but also to exchange with other researchers, either through their questions about your results or through your questions about their presentations. This allows you to have external feedback on your work that will contribute to its general improvement.

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