As of last week, I am officially a third year PhD student! Calling myself a third year has felt very grown up and a bit surreal. I’m currently reading the Fourth Wing series, and in that book, third year students are the most senior and expected to lead others and be prepared to go to war, and whilst the only thing I’ll ever have to defend is my thesis, I see the similarities that being a third year has in terms of gravitas.

I’ve not blogged as much as usual this year – I’d usually be four blogs into 2026 by now! I think that speaks to how intense the second year of a PhD can be. I’d been warned about the ‘second year trenches’ before: It’s the year that you’ll be most likely to drop out as your stress levels rise due to increased work load, and the expectation to publish your first set of results from your research. Thankfully, I didn’t drop out! I’ll admit there was a week about halfway through second year where I came very close, but I’m very very lucky to be surrounded by a wonderful support network who wouldn’t let me give up on myself and my dream.

The end of my PhD is in sight, which is as exciting as it is terrifying, and I’m super happy and proud to have made it to this point. I’ve definitely noticed a change in myself over the last year: I am now much more resilient, spending more time mentoring and supporting newer PhD students, and noticing that others are starting to consider me as an expert in my field (how awesome is that?!). I think I started years one and two of my PhD with an inherent fear that I wasn’t cut out for this path – that is now completely gone. I am confident that I can do this.

How is third year different from previous years?

As well as feeling a little more senior in my research, third year comes with some other changes too!

• I don’t have to do annual reviews anymore! At the end of first and second year, I had to do a ‘mini-viva’-style interview, presenting my research to two professors in order to continue into the next year of study. Even though I have 18 months left of my PhD, I don’t have to do another review – the only test left is my full PhD defence!
• People have started asking me about my future. 18 months might feel like ages left in my PhD, but when it comes to finding post-doc funding to stay in academia, it’s not much time at all! I’m now having to consider more practical aspects of my research career, and what I will do when my PhD is over.
• I will have to write my thesis. The time has come. This time next year, I’m hoping to start writing my PhD thesis, which is the large body of text I submit to complete my PhD, and contains 3 years worth of work which will be assessed by a panel. That is going to be a daunting task!

If you’d like to know more about how PhDs are assessed, check out my blog post which goes into this in detail.

Overall reflections from my 2nd year of study

Sticking with the format from my one year, sixth-month and one-month reflections, how has my second year been?

I am still pinching myself that I’m a space researcher. The wonder and awe I feel about space was intensified with the Artemis II mission that launched earlier this month. The last crewed mission launch I watched live was in 2015 when I’d just started my Astrophysics degree and British astronaut Tim Peake launched to the International Space Station. I watched the Artemis II mission with a different eye. In addition to being excited (and literally kicking my feet like a child when the rocket launched), I found myself thinking about the technical details of how space missions operate, and being asked questions by friends and family about how different aspects of the mission would work. Whilst my expertise is in satellites rather than rockets, I watched this launch feeling like a much more ingrained member of the space community, and was able to appreciate tiny intricacies that I didn’t even know about when I started my undergraduate degree and was watching Tim Peake launch 11 years ago.

I’ve found myself relying on my support network more this year. When you work in academia full time, you’re surrounded by some of the brightest minds in the world who work in similar fields, whilst being bombarded with deadlines to publish work and fighting with code that isn’t working. So it’s easy to feel insignificant and forget how special doing a PhD is. In reality, less than 2% of the world’s population have a PhD! When stress got too much, I would often turn to my incredible friends and family for a pick-me-up, and to get outside of the academic bubble I spend most of my time in. They’d reassure me, let me geek out about space and my research, and remind me how cool my work is. If any of you are reading this, thank you, I love you, and I will owe finishing my PhD to you.

On a technical level, I have learned so much this year! I have my first set of results (and am working on publishing them in a paper as we speak!), and I’m really pleased with how my coding skills have come along. I’ve sometimes fallen into a trap of focusing more on software engineering than developing academic code, but old habits die hard! I’ve gotten a much better balance between reading research and doing my own work, and I’m able to read papers much faster now. My writing ability has also improved – I had my first peer-reviewed journal paper published in July 2025 and a conference paper presented in January 2026. I’m hoping this will help me when it gets to thesis writing time!

Socially, I still adore Glasgow. Our lab set up a book club, walking group and board games club in the last year, which has helped me meet lots of lovely PhD students from across the university and make some new friends! I’m getting more involved in the local community, having re-joined Scouts as a Beaver Leader, and becoming a fan of Partick Thistle football club and Glasgow Clan ice hockey! The population of our research lab has boomed over the last year, with 2 new PhD students and 2 new post docs joining us! Our lab is as chatty and fun as ever. I love it here!

My achievements and challenges

So what have I achieved since my last update? I have:

• Passed my second year review!
• Had my first peer-reviewed journal paper published!
• Had a conference paper published!
• Got my first set of research results!!
• Presented at a bunch of conferences, including the 2025 BCS SIGiST Conference, Scottish Women Graduates Research Day, UKAEA Women in Computing, SciTech 2026 and the Strathclyde Sustainability Festival.
• Won an IET Postgraduate travel award.
• Put myself out there applying for a bunch of awards and conferences (results coming later this year!)
• Attended an ESA Space Systems Engineering Summer School.
• Travelled to Belgium, Florida and Germany for my work. Hoping to visit some new countries this year (watch this space!)
• Working on some exciting collaborations for my research!

As for the challenges:

• Putting yourself out there more often brings more rejections. I was rejected from a conference for the first time, and rejected from a training scholarship. It’s all a learning curve! I imagine there will be more rejection in my future (as well as more success), but you can’t win them all.
• Stress levels reached an all time high. As well as having PhD stress, I injured myself from exercising towards the end of 2025 which meant I couldn’t exercise for 4 months, which took away my main stress outlet. That was really tough!

Lessons Learned

And finally, some lessons I’ve learned from the 2nd year of my PhD:

• Over-communicate everything. The best way to get support you need is by communicating with your friends, family, team and your supervisor(s). Sometimes embarrassment or shame might make you feel like hiding away – don’t!! It doesn’t help in the long run.
• Hold onto what makes you, you. Academia can make people jaded. There can be pressure to fit in with academic norms, and something I’ve learned over the past year is that showing your personality and standing out is way more fun and brings you much more success. For example, when designing posters for conferences, I don’t design them to fit the classic academic template – I design them creatively to show off my unique work. Or when I dress for events, I love wearing things that make me feel like me rather than wearing what others might expect me to wear. Have fun, be you!