A PhD in Numbers

2026-07-30

Students coming to the end of their degrees often ask me about doing a PhD; if it's just like a bachelor's degree but more. While every PhD is different, I can give an idea of what's involved.

In late 2021, I was coming to the end of my undergraduate degree and was needing to decide what would come next. A fully-funded PhD studentship that looked interesting opened on 2021-09-13 and closed on 2021-10-29. I applied on 2021-10-01, received an interview offer on 2021-11-18, was interviewed on 2021-12-15, and received a formal offer on 2021-12-17. I accepted on 2021-12-20 and officially started on 2022-06-06. I submitted on 2025-07-18, and passed my viva on 2025-12-09.

In the 1,283 days spanning my PhD, I think I did quite a bit. Let's look at a PhD in numbers.

The Thesis

• 408 pages
• 131,095 words
• 828,497 characters
• 8,743 paragraphs
• 14,792 lines
• 11 chapters
• 88 figures
• 97 tables
• 323 papers referenced
• 885 papers read

The Panel

• 145 days between submission and viva voce
• 3 panel members
• 15 minute overview presentation given
• 2 hours 42 minutes panel duration
• 15 minutes of deliberation
• 3 practice vivas
• 167 practice questions rehearsed

Publications

• 5 papers
• 1 poster
• 1 research abstract
• 1 preprint
• 4 conference reviews

Studies

• 3 studies conducted
• 126 participants recruited
• 48 participants tested
• 54 sources used for participant recruitment
• 12 hours of audio recordings produced
• 58,744 words of participant transcripts produced
• 34 hours of users interaction studied
• 6 programming languages used
• 6 project-specific tools built
• 1,716 research artefacts produced
• 3 datasets produced
• 2 AI models produced
• 1 software application produced
• 1 testing environment developed
• ~191.7Gb of research data produced

Engagement

• 6 conferences attended
• 10 lanyards acquired
• Innumerable tote-bags, notebooks, and branded pens

Communication and Outreach

• 12,413 emails received
• 1,497 emails sent
• 99 check-in meetings
• 334 new points of contact
• 7 news articles
• 2 radio interviews
• 1 magazine publication
• 4 invited talks

Travel

• 6 flights
• 28 trains
• ~780 buses
• 1 taxi
• 1 tram
• 3 hotels
• 7 train stations visited
• 4 airports visited
• 3 countries visited
• 2 currencies used
• 5 universities visited
• 9,777 total miles (15,734 kilometres)

Academic Practice

• 10 modules taught
• ~1,350 students taught
• Across 5 degree-types
• ~1,080 hours of teaching
• 39 students supervised
• 1 training session developed

Other

• 3 email addresses
• 3 office changes
• 2 laptops
• 3 desktops
• 64Gb of RAM
• 3 GPUs
• 24Gb of VRAM
• 1 student award
• 1 runner-up award
• ~2,730 espressos
• ~343,980mg of caffeine
• 1 gown
• 1 bonnet
• 20 seconds on stage
• 1 degree

Inspired by A PhD in Numbers by David Stutz.