Writing a dissertation is like the Amsterdam marathon but with fewer spectators, according to Eva Meeus.

On Friday, the 13th of October, I handed in my dissertation. For four years, I studied transition metal‑catalyzed reactions in water as a PhD student at the University of Amsterdam. Rather fundamental research, but with a clear goal: providing a lead for the development of innovative drugs. Indeed, only a lead. A PhD candidate’s research is just the tip of the iceberg. After all, science is a team effort to which everyone contributes. Besides that, PhD research is also something you mainly do for yourself. Partly for this reason, you often take for granted the long working days, short weekends, and many disappointments, and keep pushing hard at work.

Finally, all efforts come together in the last phase of the PhD track. In this phase, you write a dissertation. All the accumulated knowledge, discoveries, successes, but also failures, must be combined into one almighty PDF file that will be printed, after approval, in a nice booklet and must be defended in front of a promotion committee and your supervisors in a beautiful church with anyone who wants to attend. But that is of later concern. First, thousands of words must be put on paper, tables must be filled, and figures have to be made. Another period of long days and short weekends, soldiering on.