Vidminas Vizgirda

Having tried work in academia, industry, and volunteering in the third sector, I decided that I'm most interested in working in academia. It offers a combination of teaching students, pursuing research that doesn't need to be profit-driven, and collaborating with people from around the world, which are all fun and meaningful activities.

A PhD is a basic requirement to progress in academia so continuing on to doctoral studies was more a question of "when" more than "if". Yet I would not have completed this PhD without my amazing supervisors, Prof. Fiona McNeill and Prof. Judy Robertson. Prof. Robertson sparked my initial interest in school education, inspired the confidence to apply for a PhD, role-modelled good research practice, and offered incredible feedback and advice. Prof. McNeill enabled this project through grant funding, tireless supervision, and encouragement to keep going when challenges arose.

Some of my favourite moments have been in attending conferences and visiting new places. As a PhD student, there are opportunities to submit papers, posters, or demos to conferences happening around the world, and often there is travel funding available to support students to attend. During my PhD, I got to visit Scotland, England, Ireland, Canada, and Australia through attending conferences, which has been enlightening and loads of fun!

PhD studies involve working on one project for a long time by yourself, which can be isolating and lonely at times. My research topic was also quite unique as there wasn't anyone else in our university studying interactive information retrieval nor design of education technology, so whilst we have a friendly community of postgraduate research students in Informatics, there wasn't anyone I could talk to about my research other than my supervisors. This pushed me to look for connections in other places. I joined the Global OER Graduate Network (GO-GN) and met other researchers through conferences and mutual connections. This has been a hugely valuable source of support, and these relationships are still lasting beyond the PhD studies, as we work on collaborations with GO-GN friends and colleagues.

There's a joke that illustrates progression through studies as the student going through stages of thinking "I know a little bit" -> "I know a lot" -> "I don't know anything" -> "Nobody knows anything". Having a perspective of how little we actually know beyond established research is a bit disconcerting. Yet it also inspires confidence to speak up and share thoughts publicly or talk to famous figures and challenge their views, because we are all just people who are trying to figure it out after all.

For new students considering starting studies in Informatics at the University of Edinburgh, I would highly recommend reaching out to current students or alumni to find out more and see if this is the right choice for you. I'm happy to connect with anyone interested on LinkedIn and set up a chat.

Beyond this, I would suggest considering why you might want to do a PhD. These days, it's not a good way to get a higher paying job (work experience counts more) and there often are quicker ways to gain skills in a particular area of interest. A PhD is only really needed for those wanting to go into academia or industry research or very niche areas.

When I was applying for a PhD, I thought that the project I propose has to be something I am deeply passionate about and could dedicate myself to. It was really difficult to choose -- how could I know whether I will still be interested be in this area in 3-4 years' time, especially when it's not clear which direction it will end up going in? My mother then gave some advice that stuck to this day -- a PhD is just a way to learn how to conduct research. The topic only has to be interesting and important enough to last you through the studies, but otherwise the purpose of the studies is to develop skills. The goal is not necessarily to change the world. Although some do, it's very rare. For most people, it's like getting a driver's licence, just an entry qualification that permits you to do research in the real world afterwards.