Are you considering a PhD, either in the United States or abroad? [Show summary]

Dr. Eva Lantsoght, a professor of civil engineering who has lived and studied all over the globe, shares her insights on applying to PhD programs in STEM fields.

What to expect when applying to domestic and international PhD programs. [Show notes]

Would you like to attend a US or UK master’s or PhD program in a STEM field? Are you concerned about the process of both applying to and completing the degree?

Dr. Eva Lantsoght is a citizen of the world, professor of civil engineering, blogger, and podcast host. Dr. Lantsoght was born in Belgium and earned her bachelor's in civil engineering in Brussels and her master's in structural engineering at Georgia Tech, with a full ride scholarship and a scholarship from the Belgian-American Educational Foundation. She earned her PhD at TU Delft, where she has been a researcher since earning her PhD in 2013 and recently received tenure. Since 2013 she has also been an assistant professor at USFQ in Quito, Ecuador, where she also has tenure.

Officially, you're a professor of civil engineering with a focus on concrete. However, you've been blogging and podcasting about something not so “concrete”: how to get into and complete PhD programs. How did you get interested in this process? [2:14]

I started blogging in the first year of my PhD, and at that time, it was just documenting my experience in the laboratory. I wanted a place where I could write about what didn't work in the lab or the processes behind what we do in the lab, like how to keep lab notes, how to organize all that information, things that don't get into a journal publication. So I started to use my blog as a space for documenting those things. As I progressed through my career, I started to write about other topics related to PhD research and PhD education, and then came questions from students thinking about doing a PhD. “What is it like? What should I consider? How do I select a school? How do I select an advisor? What is different about a PhD in the Netherlands versus the United States?” I started to write about all of these topics.

I think there's a lot of information out there, but I found that, especially in my niche of engineering and civil engineering, there may not be that many professor bloggers or PhD student bloggers out there. I stepped up to the lack that was there and started to address those. From those questions came my interest in looking at what PhD programs are like at different universities and why there are these differences and how that then impacts the career of researchers after going through a more research-oriented or more a coursework-and-research-oriented PhD program.

What is the typical process for earning a PhD in a STEM field? [4:24]

It also really depends on the country, but mostly I've worked in the Netherlands. What I see is that typically, if it's full-time, it will be a three- to four-year endeavor. If you do it part-time, of course, it takes at least five years. There will always be a time of reading, familiarizing yourself with the literature, defining what is really going to be your research question, the topic that you really want to address.