Thread by @HadasKotek

A common convo I have with PhD students who are about to graduate:
Them: I haven't done anything useful/good/impressive
Me: You got good grades in undergrad
Them: right, but
Me: and got admitted into this grad program
Them: ..
Me: and got a fellowship / other financial support

Me: and you completed PhD level coursework
Them: ..
Me: as well as multiple projects and papers of varying lengths
Them: ..
Me: and you compiled research insights into written form and presented them to others
Them: ..
Me: and you're currently working on a multi-year innovative >

> project that's advancing the scientific community's understanding of X
Them: ..
Me: I'm going to guess you organized some reading groups or conferences or other multi-participant, multi-speaker events
Them: ..
Me: and you've taught complex material to diverse audiences

Me: you probably put together teaching materials, designed assessments, provided detailed feedback to learners
Them: ..
Me: you probably also collaborated with others on your work
Them: ..
Me: I bet you recruited participants for your studies and wrangled all aspects of that

Me: You've read and digested some highly specialized, dense, hard-to-read text
Them: ..
Me: and distilled insights, figured out how some ideas connect to others, support or challenge them
Them: ..
Me: and how to test the limits and limitations of those ideas and insights
Them: ..

Me: I bet you taught yourself some complex research techniques, be it quantitative or qualitative or both
Them: ..
Me: you can persevere and overcome ambiguity and challenges
Them: ..
Me: you're one of the foremost experts in the world on The Thing That Your PhD Is On
Them: ..

tl;dr being in the academic cocoon it's easy to forget that getting through a PhD program is one heck of an accomplishment. It teaches skills and develops expertise most people don't have. It's a valuable and valued experience. Stop underestimating yourself! #AltAcChats #phdchat