7 Great Tips for Using Technology For PhDs

Technology is crucial in education, even up to the Ph.D. level. However, apart from a laptop or computer, many people may need help to determine the technological setup they need to succeed in their Ph.D. studies. You may only write some of your essays independently since you can outsource them to Ph.D. dissertation services. However, beyond writing essays, there are several ways that technology can help you with your studies and also ensure you’re living a better life. This article discusses a few tips for harnessing technology to your advantage as a Ph.D. student.

1. You need an iPad (with an Apple pencil)

Getting an iPad will benefit you, but adding an apple pencil into the mix will be even better. Using these two together can be a game-changer for your studies. These gadgets are even more effective if your program is research-oriented. This means you’ll have to read a thousand and one journal articles and need a tablet device for these papers, or you have to read them on your computer or even print them out before reading.

Getting an iPad and pencil works like getting a pen and paper. You can make notes and highlight interesting parts of a paper with ease. As a Ph.D. student, you understand the need for efficiency in everything you do, and this gadget combination helps you achieve that.

2. You will struggle without a noise-canceling headphone

Noise-canceling headphones are crucial for all college students, even at the undergraduate level. So, imagine how much more important they’ll be for you at the Ph.D. level. You’ll do a lot more reading and writing at this level of education. The last thing you want is to be distracted by everything and anything. Remember that efficiency is key to your graduate studies; you can’t achieve this if you’re constantly distracted. So, why not block out the noise with an effective gadget? Buying noise-canceling headphones guarantee that your productivity increases massively. Even if you have to spend most of your time in shared spaces, such as libraries, labs, offices, and college buildings, your headphone can always place you in your little world where you’re less concerned and undistracted by everyone and everything going on around you.

3. Store better with hard drives

It’s not advisable to rely solely on your computer storage at any level of your education; how much more is the Ph.D. level? Apart from your computer storage getting filled up and being unable to store more important documents, it may also start to run slow, wasting your time and reducing your efficiency. In the worst-case scenario, your computer might crash, and you’ll lose everything you’ve stored in it. Depending solely on your computer’s storage is too big a risk. That’s why you need a hard drive.

Individually, each file on your computer is small. But when you consider that there are thousands of them, including the papers you’re reading/have read and the ones you’ve written through dissertation writing services or by yourself, it makes sense that they all add up to take the storage space. To ensure you don’t lose all of these files, get an external hard drive to keep them safe. as long as you don’t lose the drive, you know your files have a proper backup if anything happens to your computer.

4. Start using cloud services

If you don’t already use cloud services, you probably still have much to learn about using technology. Cloud drive service is one of the most secure ways to back up your files and be sure they’re secured. Many universities provide cloud storage for their students; you must take advantage of this. With cloud storage, you have unlimited (or close to unlimited) storage space and can access your files at any time, even ten years from now. It’s also easy to share the folders and files with other people working on the same project as you. And this means the file is being backed up in several places. Cloud services make life very easy for you.

5. Use an external keyboard, monitor, and mouse

An external monitor is one of the many things you should get as a Ph.D. student, even if you don’t realize it. It’s one of the best ways to improve your productivity. If your work has to do with analyzing data, that’s more reason to get one because you may need to have your code, data, output, and several google pages up simultaneously, and you can’t do this with a small laptop screen. If you think you can’t multitask, it’s probably because you don’t have the monitor for it. It doesn’t only work for data analysis, however. It’s also effective when you’re writing your essays and dissertation and you need to keep tabs on your references. You’ll need a larger external monitor to do this effectively. If you can add an external keyboard and mouse to it, it will help you be more productive. It might help if you have a mouse in different locations where you study, such as your home and school offices, so your laptop’s mouse does not slow you down.

6. Manage your time better with a smartwatch

A smartwatch might not be necessary like some of the other things I’ve mentioned, but they’re also very helpful in your daily life as a Ph.D. student. You can use your smartwatch to track your time, calendar, the weather and even your health, which is important as a graduate school student. However, one very important use of the watch is that you can use it when practicing the Pomodoro technique while working or studying. The Pomodoro technique is productivity, where you alternate breaks between work. For instance, if you work for 40 minutes, you can take a break for 20 minutes. This keeps your brain refreshed and allows you to be more productive. Your smartwatch allows you to master this technique and boost your productivity.

7. Get the adapters

It’s highly recommended that you get all the adapters you might need, especially if you’re a mac user. You’ll have to do several activities, such as teach classes, give presentations, connect to external monitors and USB drives, etc. It can be a massive pain if you don’t have the right adapters to carry out these activities. While you might be able to borrow adapters at some specific places in your university, they may not always be available, and you don’t want to get stuck when you should be completing a task. So, it’s safer for you to buy all the adapters you might need even before you need them. It might cost you some bucks, but it’ll save you so much more in the long run. Own them all and take them with you everywhere you go. You don’t know when you’ll need anyone of them.

Conclusion 

Thriving in Ph.D. studies isn’t necessarily difficult; you need to have the right things. Technology helps make life easier for students, so you should take advantage of it, and the best way to do this is by getting the necessary gadgets. It may not look like it, but these are hacks to scale through your graduate school using technology easily.