To Do or Not to Do a Phd?: Insight and Guidance from a Public Health PhD Graduate

Chapter one: What Is a PhD? Am I Ready for this Commitment?

- This chapter sets the scene for the book. It provides information on what is a PhD and a short history of this academic endeavor. It also touches upon why one would want to do a PhD degree and whether this degree really suits the person's ambition, work-life balance, job satisfaction during the graduate program, and the different job opportunities one would have once the PhD is over. Would there be research opportunities or faculty positions following completion of the PhD? It also discusses the anticipated life scenarios that a PhD student would face including living costs (such as housing costs, transportation, health insurance, etc.), possibility of a student loan, potential of achieving a fellowship or funding support that are all associated with a PhD, as well as whether a part-time, full-time (on the ground), online, or hybrid program is the most suitable program to pursue. Finally, the author discusses the difference between enrolling in a PhD vs. DrPH program.

Chapter two: The initial steps of a PhD

- The chapter starts by addressing the application process and how to choose the best doctoral school that meets one's requirement, taking into consideration both European and US programs. It also touches upon the identification of an accredited doctoral school through the Council on Education for Public Health (CEPH) for the US and the Bologna Process for Europe, as well as discuss the general application requirements needed to apply to a doctoral program in the US and Europe. This chapter then follows a two-fold approach. First, it discusses the steps required to follow an original PhD, where the student needs to come up with the research question and identify the supervisor. It also touches upon the different research designs available and the importance of identifying the most appropriate research design to answer the set research question. The second part discusses briefly the other type of PhD, where the title is already present and the student would have an aim and scope already set up for him/her.

Chapter three: Proposal, Permissions, and Funding

- This chapter discusses how to construct a winning research proposal, how to budget, and how to create a Gannt chart. It also discusses how to achieve your own funding if no grant / funding has been allocated by the university to conduct this study. A section is dedicated to identifying and achieving the institutional permissions, data protection, and ethics permissions required for the PhD fieldwork.

Chapter four: The fieldwork

- This chapter focuses on how to set up a validated questionnaire (examples are provided that include links to validated questionnaires) and a health examination survey. It provides an explanation of other modes of fieldwork depending on the research design that was chosen. However, the main focus is on how to conduct a cross-sectional survey, which is the most easily conducted fieldwork for a public health PhD.

Chapter five: The art of data analysis

- This chapter gives brief explanations of how to identify whether the data obtained from the fieldwork is of normal distribution and if one needs a parametric or non-parametric approach to statistics respectively. It discusses the need of eyeballing the data as well as provides a brief explanation of descriptive and analytic statistics one may need to use.

Chapter six: Putting pen to paper to publication

- This chapter discusses how to translate the results into a scientific paper and prepare it for publication in a journal. It also touches upon how to choose an appropriate journal.

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