Keep calm and write paper? No, I can't...

This post is in memory of my first conference paper and it is also a summary of my work for the past six months since I started my PhD.

I mentioned in my last post that I got my PhD offer since last September, but I waited almost three months until I got my contract and started work legally in German. After three months of waiting (vacation), I was so ready to go back to work again and I was also so excited to start my new life in Berlin.

Last December, on my first day of work, my supervisor gave me a task and a pile of references. He suggested me to start from solving this task and write a conference paper for the IWSHM 2017. To be honest, when I first read the task, I had no clue about it and there were even some keywords that I don’t know at all before.

I wrote down all the keywords that I don’t understand and read their definitions and applications. I started to read the references that my supervisor gave to me. I spent almost one and half month to understand the task and understand what my supervisor has done. I kept tracking every paper I have read and tried to make connection to my own paper that I am going to write.

After two months of intensive reading, at the end of January, I had a general idea on how to solve the task and how my paper would be look like. I started to write the abstract and build the whole structure of the paper and put related reference into each section. Before 1^st of February I sent my abstract to my supervisor, he helped me to revise it and I submitted after that. But this was just the beginning, the hardest part was how to apply the theory and get results.

At the same time, I wrote the state of the art of my PhD topic due to the INFRASTAR project needs on February. Then March came, I started to do some coding practice in MATLAB. To be honest, coding is always my weakness, it was really a hard process for me.

At the end of March, I attended the INFRASTAR first training week. Due to the secondment agreement, I moved from Berlin to Aalborg university and I stayed here for two months from April to May. I was supposed to finish my first task during this period. But things became even harder, because I can only contact my supervisor through email and skype which made communication not that easy.

Thanks to all the people I have met in Aalborg university, especially the teams of John Dalsgaard Sørensen. They really helped me a lot with MATLAB and calculations. The coding part was finished at the end of April.

I started to fill the results into the content of the paper. Around the mid of May, I sent the manuscript to my supervisor and started a long journey of revising.

You need a strong heart and enough patience to revise the paper again and again until the end of the submission day!

I even asked for a two-weeks extension in order to submit a perfect manuscript. I really want to say thanks to my supervisor and gave him a thumb up, he even reviewed my paper and sent me the comments when he was on vacation!