Rewriting my thesis | Life as a PhD student #21
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- Опубліковано 8 жов 2017
- Supervisors disagree sometimes, and their students are caught in the cross-fire. That means me, and re-writing my whole thesis...
Also some singing, editing, livestreaming, and sax playing. Points if you can correctly guess exactly what I was playing...
Video explaining my beard: • My curious beard #ad
Lord for thy tender mercy's sake: • Lord, For Thy Tender M...
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Music by: David Cutter Music - www.davidcuttermusic.co.uk
Filmed on my Canon 80D: bit.ly/simonvlog80D
Editing done in Premiere.
Huge thanks to my supporters on Patreon: Samuel Rose, Frederic Ysewijn, Kane Thynne, Eve Dillon, Rowan Gow, Rikke Norgaard Christiansen, Daniel Martin, Matthias Loos, James Bridges, Hanna Scott, James Craig, Angela Cook, Sanaa Al Derei, Mark Anthony Magro, Maddie Sisk, Liam Farrar, Theresa Wang, Hunter Jones, Nathan Smith, Kieran Kelly, Wendover Productions, Kendra Johnson, Caitlin Louise, and Real Engineering.
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I am Simon, a fourth year PhD candidate at the University of Exeter. I upload videos on bits of science which are relevant to what I do, and sometimes just because they're really cool.
Vlogs from Oxford students - / oxvlog
My twitter - / simonoxfphys
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Thanks to Vlogbrothers for their sponsorship of this video. Money from the Foundation to Decrease Worldsuck contributed to equipment used in this video.
When I feel stressed about school I watch this and realize how easy high school is
True on so many levels
Your style of making videos is getting so fucking gooooood ahhhhhhhhhh
seriously mate you will beat casey neistat one day ,
SIMON YOU SHOULD VISIT YOUR OLD SCHOOL AND TITLE THE VIDEO "VISITING MY FORMER SECONDARY SCHOOL AFTER MY OXFORD DEGREE" ETC ETC AND WE MEET YOUR TEACHERS PLEASEEE
I enjoyed hearing you play the sax
Simon is the type of Clark to do his thesis on his wedding day
He is marrying now 🙈🙈
Simon I just wanna say that you are really inspirational to me, and i hope you get through any struggles that come your way, and remember to talk to people if you're feeling down! I know you probably know all that but i just wanted to throw it out there
you have such a beautiful voice ♥ had to come back and say i love your lifestyle and how you still find time for music props!
It's like the dwarf version on the casting couch! ;) 6:02
Dear god, the first seconds I really got the feeling like you were standing behind me 😂
I had to rewrite my complete PhD thesis introduction as well for exactly the same reason. To poetic, to much story like...
Hang in there you can do it!👍 Just send in my PhD thesis to my jury😁
Initially my brain registered "Lord, for thy tender mercy's sake" as some kind of aggressive comment about music being in the vlog hahaha
(btw I love it, keep the music coming!)
"What I'm trying to say is I have a beard"😀😀
I feel for you. Goodluck with your writing!
I doubt you have the inclination or time to, but when I'm in an academic-writing-rut, I read a US Supreme Court decision. Their writing is mostly really concise, objective and to-the-point, it usually (hopefully) gets me back into the swings of things.
I would love to read the Supreme Court decision; can you please post a link here?
Literally pick any of them from here: www.supremecourt.uk/decided-cases/ . The idea is to read an academic article/decision that is completely unrelated to the subject your writing. It gives you that separation whilst also reading and taking inspiration from good, solid, concise writing.
Thanks so much for your prompt reply. I must say that they are so much readable than those days when I was in law school!
In my haste I gave you the UK Supreme Court decisions. Here is the link to the US Supreme Court Opinions (same thing, different name) supreme.justia.com/cases/federal/us/ As I said, the point isn't who you read and that you like their style. I'm sure you know, the hardest part of academia is finding your 'voice' or writing style. I won't ramble on, though I can talk about this forever and a day
Wishing you all the best Simon Clark, I think getting this PHD is going to be awesome not just for you but for all your fans! Nearly there now. 🙂
Always enjoy your vlogs Simon, having an active second supervisor is a bummer - been there done that. just keep going ...
The beard, the sax, this video is everything!
"Gayyyy" says the boy drinking from the 'Nobody Knows I'm Gay' mug ahaha
This video was seriously good. And you really didan incredible job on editing this one. I could say a LOT more on how much I love this and every single one of your videos, and how much they mean to me, but I think it would turn out to be a description the same length as your thesis. So, basically, you're a top lad Simon. ;)
Thank you so much! The highest praise that can be given :)
loved your little chat on friends, so cute
Keep the beard you absolute legend
Love your videos💕 from Venezuela
Looking all good mate !!! Nice , very handsome with that beard on ;)
your beard looks great, you look extremely exhausted though dude. I hope you can find the time for some rest soon. Good luck on the thesis!
love love love the beard
Ahh, such a good video once again
Watching you write your PhD has me motivated as heeeeeeeell while I putter through the last year of undergrad
Great video man! I'm a new undergrad at Exeter, I think I saw you and your magnificent beard a few days ago!
It took me ages to realise but your beard looks like Richard Hammonds
Louis Gillet loooool so true
Good luck Simon, not joking but PhD changed me a lot too :D hope I will be able to write my thesis next year
Re-writing the whole thesis O_o
Oh gosh! It's a very bad thing could happen to a PhD student! Having written some thesis I know what it means... I'm emotionally with you.
Cool Vlog session as always man. By the way Tony a Stark beard? That Sax tho cool man.
Good ol LaTeX... Best of luck with the thesis! Just started my PhD in astrophysics in Dublin, and just finished my masters thesis so I (sort of) feel your pain.. At least I have a few years before thinking about another one 😂
I haven’t watched you in a while and well, the beard...
Cool bro
imalwaysshook omg your picture 😍
Gud job bro.. all d best for ur thesis..
I actually really dig the beard.
wowz I'm so original, all the comments are about the beard.
Your giving me a "Richard Hammond with a beard" vibe.
The most favourable comparisons seem to be either Richard Hammond or Lin Manuel-Miranda
Dude, that's a sick beard
SIMON YOU SHOULD VISIT YOUR OLD SCHOOL AND TITLE THE VIDEO "VISITING MY FORMER SECONDARY SCHOOL AFTER MY OXFORD DEGREE" ETC ETC AND WE MEET YOUR TEACHERS PLEASEEEee
I find your videos motivating.
I find your comments lovely :)
You're actually quite good at playing the sax! No reason to feel ashamed about it in your vlog! Maybe you could let us know about your progress with the sax in the upcoming vlogs and tell us something about why you started playing again after such a long time! And by the way: great vlog as usual!
Thank you! And I think I will :)
I hope Simon is free from the PhD stress soon he looks so tired like omg wow
I actually like the beard
Im already struggling in year 1 at Uni looool
In the first week of my PhD and this is giving me motivation!
Lovely Sax session!
YOU DESERVE MORE SUBSCRIBERS! 😣
I see the struggle, ignore the beard comment(s)Please do whatever you need to keep yourself feeling fine and goingHope you will perfect your thesis to the point you and your supervisors find it extraordinaryGood luck! Stay strong!
every time the camera turns back to him I'm like who dat
Not sponsored by Jake wright 😂😂
I love that you still watch the Yogscast. If only I could mimic your insane work ethic then we would have two things in common.
when i heard Bastille in the background i felt a warm tingle in my toes
Simon is my everything
and I dig the beard
The only thing missing at 7:27 is a bead of sweat trickling down your brow. On a serious note, best of luck powering through the rest of your thesis!! YOU GOT THIS
best intro :)
I recognised the music as something from Bach's Cello Suites but I had to look up the score to find out the specific movement (the Courante from suite 1). Don't be too hard on yourself - I think Bach would be more astonished at his music still being played 300 years after he wrote it, than he would be annoyed at a few duff notes!
Had to stop watching your videos for a while because I was getting anxiety thinking about my Msc. dissertation results coming out.. they finally came out and I got an 80, yay! Spent today catching up on all your videos :)
Yay congratulations! Glad to have you bad :)
Beard is good, just keep going with it.
Fast forward about a year after this, and Simon is visiting and co-creating some stuff, livestreams and vids with the yogs :D
During the PhD, did you have to take seminars and/or classes as a TA for undergrad modules?
hey simon, would you consider doing an updated version of the best physics books you've read? the last one I saw was in 2013
Every single comment is about your beard, I swear to god 😂😂
(I do like it tho )
Beard get's better. Also you look as tired as me when in the middle of 50-hour-week-lab weeks.
when he mentioned the yogscast teared up a bit yk
You should definitely keep your beard, it really suits you!
Hi Simon, nice beard. Can I ask, in what way did your writing sound poetic. Can you give an example of what you mean and what is then the preferred method. Thanks for your time! I know you're really busy lately.
Bless you for uploading when you did. Otherwise I would've surely gone to sleep again "for a few minutes" and overslept for work.
Haha I'm glad to help!
I’m at the beginning of my PhD journey and absolutely love your videos. They’re so informative despite being on completely different topics but I’m shocked at how much work yours entails.
Maybe I’m being ignorant because I’ve just started but the second and third year students don’t seem to do half as much work as you despite being on track.
Is it because if your specific subject that you’re this crazy busy? Or did you procrastinate a lot earlier and are now playing catch up?
I'm something of a special case. In addition to doing so much youtube and singing on the side, to be frank my supervisor is /really/ hands-off, and hasn't given me or the other PhD on the project much direction. As such with the recent intervention of my second supervisor we're racing to complete a full PhD's work - not because I haven't been working the whole time (I have!) but because it's not been directed in such a way that can be written up into a thesis.
It's called a goatee Simon. GOSH.
"Wow it's really small when it's far away." I feel like that needs to be on a t-shirt haha
I felt like Dougal from Father Ted a.k.a. an ejit
love that facial !! just a few more years and you'll have a J.C. Maxwell beard
Haha I can but hope!
How do you plan your days out?
Hello guys I just started my master degree. About a month ago but did a 3 months internship (collecting data) this summer. I feel like i'm not working as hard as a should. I take long pauses and I'm on my phone a lot. Is this normal because I'm just beginning? Need advice feel like I don't really know what im doing right now.
Honestly that sounds normal to me - working 100% of the time is actually counterproductive in the long run as you'll burn out. Be kind to yourself and if you find yourself getting distracted then realise that it's ok to take a few minutes off here and there!
Sarah Derksen hello I don't have games on my phone. Mostly facebook and instagram
Simon Clark thanks its reassuring! :)
Am I the only one who clocked the casting couch joke? 😂🤦🏻♀️
Hi you,
I'm doing my B.Sc. work on astronomy right now and today I collapsed. Did you experience anything similar?
😱 you have a beard
Hey Simon I'm writing my EPQ on the language used in the scientific world and since you used a "poetic language" on your thesis (despite being told off by your supervisor) I wanna know your thoughts around that area!
I got a null result on my doctoral thesis too. So annoying! Although it’s definitely true that it’s still valuable, there was absolutely no criticism around that during my defence and I think it actually meant there were more interesting things to talk about in the defence around why it didn’t have the expected outcome. Which meant less time to discuss boring nitty-gritty thesis stuff like the ins and outs of the analysis!
Interesting to know! Since this video was filmed things are a bit murkier but generally more positive, which based on your experience means my viva will be a lot more interesting...
You should post your whole solo of The Turtle Dove
Had the exact same problem in my bachelor thesis 2 weeks ago, wanted to write very nice and with a lot of accessory senetences. So I also had to rewrite a lot. But might be another issue as I don't speak english as mother tongue.
Are 100 pages common for a PhD thesis? Over here this is rather the length of a master thesis, PhDs here rather write something like 500 pages
It very much depends on the subject - geosciences theses in the UK seem to be around 140-180 pages, somewhere in the middle 100s. My masters thesis was something like 40 pages I think. At the same time history theses are several hundred pages, and a friend of mine just handed in his thesis in computer science: his was over 300 pages long. Mine will be shorter than most (though not as short as some - I've seen theses that are 80 pages long!) as it's a relatively theoretical thesis. So realistically you can't stretch "here's the relevant background, here's my new theory, here's how it performs" over that many pages; I anticipate mine will be about 140-150 pages when it's complete.
Yeah, my bachelor thesis was about muon veto at IceCube, so essentially, simulation and analysis and had in total about 50 pages.
Great video! Quick question: Does doing UA-cam take up a lot of your time? (I know it probs will) because if its using valuable time then you shouldn't worry about us ect and just take a break to focus on your Thesis till its done! We won't mind. :)
How long have you been watching the Yogscast for?? Knowing the M.I.L.K song I assume you've been watching for a few years? I used to watch them around 6-7 years ago but starting to enjoy them again reliving the memories
I've watched consistently the whole time I've been at uni - I really clearly remember watching them as a fresher and I think maybe even a bit before. So closing in on 9 years of watching! Would love to collab with them one day
3:18 love that reference 😂😂😂
That's not a beard, that's a goatee.
I wish my area had a Journal of negative results...
Bach cello suite no. 1!! :)
Winner winner chicken dinner!
Bach cello suit on the Sax?
Is it just me or is the audio sync on this out whenever the camera is pointed at Simon's face?
I didn’t like your beard in the last on your Instagram posts, but after seeing it again on UA-cam it looks better.
No I’m iffy, it looks nicer, and I’m now use to seeing you with a beard 🤔
After pretty much finishing one of my chapters, I gave it to my second supervisor, who asked my to completely restructure/rewrite it. I did and guess what my examiners asked my to rewrite it in the original version...
So remember it's your thesis not theirs.
Gotta love dem Taotronics Bluetooth Earphones though.
Simon, would it have been better if u showed your thesis to the second supervisor while consulting your main supervisor? Or it's common to consult one at a time
Quick question: Do you have to account for uncertainties in your calculations? ( such as Random, Reading and Systematic ). Just always wondered!
Oh yeah, for sure - in fact that's what I'm waiting to hear about from one of my supervisors before I can write my final chapter!
Could you make a video on python mistakes that you encountered throughout and how you solved them. Also I was curious as to whether you will post your finished thesis at the end of your PhD. If your could reply that would be great
I'll be posting my thesis at the end, don't worry! As for python mistakes, I think this will feature in a future video series - watch this space...
Simon Clark Okay great keep up the amazing work
Lookin like Richard Hammond with that face fuzz
Hey man. If your principle supervisor can’t back you up and the work you’ve done together then you need a serious sit down with the team to see how you’ve got in this situation in the first place. If there’s fundamental changes that need to be made at this stage then something’s gone wrong
Can you upload ur code? im curious, Thanks
Hey Simon, I’m in year 13 and am struggling massively on deciding what course to do at uni. Any advice?
Thank you
Follow what you find interesting - life is too short to do anything else! Don't worry about employment after uni, or what people will think. Just evaluate what you want to to be passionate about for three years
It's a kind of coincidence that or something... but i have to write my thesis again too. Not the whole, just some part of it..
U look gud with ur beard on...
Is that LaTeX you're using for typing out your thesis? Been using it a lot lately in my math courses at uni
Yep, I can't imagine doing my thesis in anything else - with the number of equations and figures I'm dealing with it's an absolute must
100 pages? Omg🙀 how many pages are usually your thesis?