It is, to say euphemistically, a special time to be curious. Curiosity is both encouraged and discouraged. On the one hand, you are told to do your own research; on the other, research is often questioned. What does that mean for you as a researcher?
The search for knowledge
The interesting thing about this dilemma is that it challenges you to think about reliability, both of your sources and of your own reasoning. And that is precisely the great adventure called "research". It is not about proving what you always thought you knew, but about discovering what you were apparently searching for, without knowing exactly what beforehand. It is no coincidence that many researchers determine their final research question only at the end of their process. To outsiders, it seems exactly the other way around: it starts with a question and ends with an answer. After all, that is how almost every research publication is structured. But research publications are retrospectively structured representations of a process full of insights and adjustments, rather than a chronological record of each step. As a PhD student, you not only learn to conduct your own research according to research standards, but also to discover what you were truly looking for and to make that the core of your publications.
Creativity within rules
It is this journey of discovery that can make doing a PhD so much fun. Scientific rules are not so much there to restrict you, but to stimulate your creativity within a reliable framework. An interesting example of this comes from literature: the writers' group Oulipo (Ouvroir de Littérature Potentielle, or Workshop for Potential Literature) explored how restrictions actually lead to more creativity. What they found was that a small set of rules stimulates creativity more than complete freedom. The latter usually leads to nothing. And the rules can be quite bizarre, think of Georges Perec's novel La Disparition (1969), written without the letter ‘e’. The satirical Ig Nobel Prize follows a similar principle: award-winning research first makes you laugh, but then makes you think.
Reliable knowledge
The rules in science sometimes seem bizarre, but they are not arbitrary. They are intended to prevent mistakes and ensure that knowledge remains reliable. In this way, science also turns out to be a workshop where insights are continuously tested and improved, a source of knowledge you can actually trust. Of course, even research as a human process is not free of errors, but it is precisely the diversity within research itself that helps demonstrate and correct these errors. As a PhD student, this is part of your journey of discovery; you remain critical, recognise misconceptions and contribute to reliable knowledge.