YouTube Channels and Videos for PhD Students – Resource

Update October 2020: Ava recently contacted me to let me know about her YouTube channel and I thought it would indeed be a great contribution to add to this resource! In particular, because Ava is at the very beginning of her PhD and I look forward to following her journey!

She is starting a PhD at UCL (UK), in addition to being a research assistant at Kings (UK), in psychiatry.

She already has nice videos about her path and on subjects like confidence struggles in academia or application and CV!

If you are also starting a PhD, you can follow Ava’s journey at the same time as you go through your own!

Update October 2020: it looks like Lucy has finish or is very close to finish her PhD, she already got her next job and she made a nice video about “Academia: Stay or Go?” ! Congrats!

Lucy is a PhD student at the University of Oxford (UK):

“The PhDiaries is a YouTube channel for PhD students to find advice, relatable misadventures, and comfort in knowing they’re not alone in their problems, all in under four minutes and usually once or twice a fortnight.”

Here about the difference between challenging and suffering

Or here about rejection

He finished his PhD about a year ago from the University of Exeter (UK), Simon has been posting videos since a long time and is quite popular given the number of subscribers. Throughout his PhD he maintained a vlog, but he also has additional interesting videos like for example here when looking back at his PhD experience: “Pros and cons of doing a PhD (personal experience)”

Olivia started grad school about one year ago so if you’re also in the beginning you could be going through this together. Olivia is studying at Penn State’s College (US).

She already has a video on things she wishes she would have known before starting

And here her vlog channel.

Deboki finished her PhD last year in the US and has an interesting series named “NOT MY THESIS”:

“A series about my experience as a PhD student in biomedical engineering. I’ve been at this grad school thing for a while”

In this episode below she goes “through each of the years of grad school and talk about why each of them suck in ways that are specific to that year”

Joolz has a few videos about her experience of a PhD student in the UK.

You might like her short video “How to Ruin your Mental Health as a PhD Student”

This one is not a one-person channel and is not from PhD students.

Here are videos from researchers and professors towards PhD students and other early career researchers:

“an online resource for graduate students, postdoctoral scholars, and junior scientists to navigate their path and learn from the experiences of others. Faculty members and scientists in the fields of chemistry and chemical engineering are invited to share their tips on developing a successful career. We have presentations on 3 categories: technical skills, soft skills, and health in higher education.”

For example: Depression in Graduate Studies, What are the Signs? (by Dr. Gary Christenson, MD)

Dr. Uri Alon is a professor in Systems biology. In this talk he reflects back on his own PhD experience and about what kind of advice he gives to his students today when they feel stuck in their projects.

“stop thinking of research as a direct line from question to answer, but as something more creative.”

Can’t insert the video here for some reason, you’ll need to click the link ☝️

A nice 15-minute talk reminding that it’s not so much the grades which matter rather than the capacity to study and to master a subject.

A PhD student in the US sharing how she figured out what career path to follow and how with her fellow students they organized group sessions to work on this together, starting with self-assessment tests and taking on action outside their lab to develop their skills.

I find it quite inspiring to see how the students themselves created their own career development program.

Get a “glimpse of what it’s like to be a grad student near the end of your PhD.”

Can’t insert the video here for some reason, you’ll need to click the link ☝️

“The Tale of a Post Doc”