Dissertation Writing

Congratulations, PhD Candidate @labuza!

This dénouement is pretty frequent in my experience - you spend months on a big project, successfully complete it, and then… life goes on. This is why I make it a point to celebrate the milestones. I create the excitement instead of waiting to feel it. This is especially helpful for projects like grants which may not have happy endings - for those, it’s even more important to celebrate the process and our step-by-step accomplishments. So for a manuscript, I celebrate the submission, the resubmission, maybe another round of submission/resubmission, and eventually the acceptance.

Many Congratulations
Nail it!! I felt exactly like you did. I remember for years leading up to my PhD I had made plans of what I would do to celebrate. Did none of them. The best thing I did for myself was to move on to another lab so I would enter that lab with my PhD completed.This was the means to assure that I would be treated as PhD and not as student in the mother lab who had completed her PhD. I think that any completed project usually has the same effect. I know when the first conference I organized was over I was drained and very sad. I got around this by organizing another one and another one and several more. Not saying to do another PhD. I did celebrate loads when i got my tenure position. Enjoy your moment and do find the means to celebrate you deserve it.

I’m glad I am not alone in this. I think some of it was due to a drop in adrenaline. Whenever we have these large presentations we get so stressed preparing that when it is done you are just exhausted. I did get to go out later that day after posting and celebrate with some friends. It also helped to appreciate the positive feedback and not just dwell on the helpful criticism.