Hi, I am Ke Chen. Under the supervision of Dr. Wilson Lu, I obtained my PhD degree from Department of Real Estate and Construction, The University of Hong Kong (HKU), in January 2018. I am now working as the Postdoctoral Fellow at HKU.

I was asked by Ms. Sujuan Zhang to share my PhD experience. Then, I started to think what I should say and what you want to know. I noticed that Dr. Yuzhong Shen (now the lecturer at Shanghai Normal University), Dr. Rong Zhang (now the lecturer at Chongqing University), and Dr. Vivien Chow (now the lecturer at Loughborough University) have all shared their valuable experience about thesis writing. So, I decide not to focus on my thesis, but to share with you some tips about getting yourself ready to be a PhD. I hope you will find them useful:

1. Reach out to the construction industry

Reaching out to the construction industry is the most direct way to know what is happening in the industry and identify both engineering and scientific questions need to be addressed. I was lucky to participate in a research project, in which a public housing project was selected for case study. Collaborated with other research team members, we conducted a comprehensive business process analysis to identify how BIM and RFID can be used to improve the delivery of prefabricated construction. In the meantime, I collected the necessary data for my PhD thesis.

2. Make good use of the university resources

Our university provided rich resources, including not only the library, gym, student halls, but also the financial support for attending conferences or having exchanges. During my PhD study, I attent several conferences and spent more than two months in Dr. Pingbo Tang’s research group at Arizona State University. These experiences gave me the chance to see the recent advance in my research field and make friends with researchers throughout the world.

Some conferences are highly recommended: World Building Congress, Construction Research Congress, International Workshop on Computing in Civil Engineering, ARCOM. If you just decide your research topic, you can present your idea in these conferences and get several useful comments for improvements.

3. Get your work published

It is important to turn your research into journal/conference/working papers or book chapters. Getting your work published is important, especially for those would like to find an academic job after graduation. Even if your paper was rejected at the first time, receiving comments/critics from reviewers and editors helps you reconsider your research and make continuous improvements.

4. Do not work too hard

I do not mean that you can get your PhD without hardworking. However, you should not put too much stress on yourself. Actually, things will change. You may want to find an academic job after graduation, but later you are more interested in industry career. You may want to conduct a Nobel price-level research, but later you only want to “find an appropriate way to answer a relatively interesting research question, showing that you are an independent researcher”. Therefore, it is good to be adaptable and resilient.

I wish you all the best of luck with your PhD study. If you have questions related to your PhD study (e.g., journal/conference selection), you can find me in Room 714, Knowles Building, HKU.

— Dr. Ke Chen