I’m Ronja, a final-year PhD student navigating the final stretch of lab work, attempting to weave a cohesive narrative from the experiments—and occasional failures—that I’ve genuinely enjoyed over the past three and a half years. With just four months to go until my submission deadline, the calendar is dotted with wedding invitations, visits from friends eager to see me in Dublin while I’m still here, and one last Irish summer that I’m determined to savour—despite the ever-present stress and a slow, persistent creep of anxiety.

At long last, I’m learning to let go of perfection. I can no longer afford to chase down every loose thread left behind by past experiments. Time is no longer elastic, and what remains must be used with ruthless efficiency. It’s time to channel the inner German: go in, do the work with precision, make it count, and don’t let standards slip.
After years spent crafting a PhD through chapters of optimisation—each concluding with an arbitrary line drawn in the sand, because there’s always room for refinement—it’s a hard lesson to internalise. Eventually, the improvements stop justifying the time and resources they demand. Knowing where to stop might be the hardest skill of all.
Perhaps that, in the end, will be the life lesson my PhD leaves me with: learning how to spend my time in ways that truly matter—ways that serve my goals, whether they’re professional, in service of others, or deeply personal. And with that lesson in hand, I’m quietly hopeful that what comes next will be shaped not just by ambition, but by intention.
Written by Ronja Struck