How to pick your physics PhD

A personal perspective on the difficult choice of PhD project, with a focus on experimental physics PhDs.

Let’s start from the basics: what is a PhD? PhD is short for Doctor of Philosophy, or Philosophiae Doctor in Latin, and Philosophia comes from the ancient greek Philo (love) and Sophia (knowledge/wisdom). So, a doctor in the “Love of Knowledge”. Sounds great and very poetic, but what actually is a PhD?

Nowadays a PhD is a 3–10 years endeavour (depending on the country and university regulations) during which one carries out innovative research on a…