Social media and your PhD

This is the first guest post by Heather Davis, a PhD Student at RMIT University

In this post I want to reflect on the value of using social media and what it might have to offer research students. As a full time PhD student investigating a messy phenomenon in real time–leadership literacies for the knowledge era–I made a conscious decision to be an active learner, to learn by doing and learn by connecting with people as well as through the literature.  I was always a reflexive practitioner and wanted to also be a reflexive researcher.

The ‘learning by doing’ part began by mapping out conferences where I could present drafts of my work. I wrote abstracts about what I needed to develop arguments for.  I thought that there would be no better way to focus the mind than presenting on that topic in 3 or 6 months time!  Yes, it might be the ‘extreme sport’ style of PhD, but it did work for me.

The risks associated with presenting work that was not ‘perfect’ and still in development have to be considered, but the benefits of receiving valuable feedback really helped me with my work.  The ‘connecting with people’ part occurred at these conferences, where I met theorists in the field (yes they are human beings!) and people with aligned interests.

The ‘connecting with people’ part was also met by the interactions with the social networks I’ve built up using Twitter, Facebook and LinkedIn, and to a lesser extent Academia.net.  The sharing of ideas and resources has been a two way thing and even though most of what I’ve learned through these networks will not go into the thesis, they have been invaluable as an action learning tool to pick up on trends, test ideas and to get a feel for what is emerging or fading.  This has helped strengthen the research instrument that is ‘me’.

The reflexive researcher part was taken up with the blog where I have written a lot about my struggles with ‘text work as identity work’ (For more see Kamler and Thomson’s book “Helping Doctoral Students to Write). I started my blog in November 2008, inspired by a  Professor at RMIT,  Brian Corbitt, telling a story about Germaine Greer writing “The Female Eunuch” from her collection of vignettes.

A vignette is a small piece of writing which tries to encapsulate a story or a moment of insight in a stand- alone piece. The beauty of a vignette is you don’t have to try to connect with other ideas.  This is opposite to how one might normally think about a thesis, which is meant to be a long, densely inter-related document. The vignette approach seemed a compelling idea, and one that I reflected on for a few months as I pondered just how I was going to become a writer, specifically how I was going to write A LOT.

I thought that blogging might be the modern day equivalent of Greer’s vignette approach. Brian was quite pleased that he had inspired such endeavours and, in typical professorial fashion, suggested that there could be a paper on ‘blogging as a research method’ in it! I have yet to write that paper, mainly because I don’t feel like I am leading that charge, unlike Lila Efimova whose blog and PhD studies are well documented at Mathemagenic and widely cited.

My blogs were written when I needed to think and reflect and this seemed to be in the period leading up to the confirmation and when designing the research.  I am currently using these blogs–these placeholders of my thoughts–as I draft my thesis chapters.

I remember commenting to my supervisor at one low point that I couldn’t write anything, not even a blog posting.  I was expecting a blast for being a terrible PhD student but reassuringly Sandra mused that perhaps I didn’t have anything to write because the issues, for now, were sorted.  Instead, perhaps, this marked the shift to a new stage of the PhD–a ‘doing the research’ stage, rather than ‘thinking about the research’ stage.  That was indeed an ‘aha’ moment for me and it is true that I didn’t feel the need to write many postings while I was ‘doing the research’ but now that I am back into writing and analysing I think that the need to blog will be more frequent.

A blog can be an archive of reflections about what it means to do a PhD. It can be a placeholder for the vignettes that build to become arguments in the thesis and, unlike a personal journal, the thoughts and arguments are open for scrutiny and feedback.

Blogs about the PhD journey–like thethesiswhisperer and by individuals–remove the veils of mystique that mask the hard work.  It shows us the ‘invisible work’ which never makes it into ink in the final thesis document.  A blog does not a PhD make, but a blog can help develop the necessary confidence to become ‘writerly’ which is necessary to tackle the thesis itself.

The dead hand of the thesis genre?

Last week @TheMarquise showed me through a her research notebook, which was full of intriguing bits of writing and diagrams. If I was to take the notebook as a guide, @TheMarquise was having a lot of good research ideas and starting to connect them together in interesting ways. In fact she seemed to be doing the kind of expansive thinking that I would expect of someone at the beginning of their candidature, especially in the humanities and the creative arts.

However, it is not my lot to be talking to PhD students when everything is peachy keen. Indeed @TheMarquise had come to see me because she was having trouble writing her confirmation report; the document we ask students to produce at the end of a year’s study to demonstrate that they have a feasible program of research planned. When asked to adopt a ‘thesis style’ her writing had become stilted - and the ideas, so lively in the notebook, now seemed laboured and obscure.

@TheMarquise knew she had to somehow translate the thinking happening in the notebook into her confirmation report, but she was struggling. It’s important to note that @TheMarquise did not lack the skills or knowledge to write this document; she had written a successful masters thesis in the conventional way before. As we talked it became clear that @TheMarquise was facing variation of a common research student dilemma. In our office we call it writing under the influence of ‘the dead hand of the thesis genre’.

There are two dead hands actually: conventional thesis structure, known as the ‘IMRAD’ formula (introduction – methods – results – discussion), and a certain kind of ‘scholarly language’ which is mannered, distancing, defensive and lacking the personal pronoun (‘I’).

Maybe it is unfair for us to call it the dead hand of the thesis genre, because there are certainly a few disciplines where the IMRAD structure and scholarly language of the distancing variety are a pair of warm and lively hands which help you to get the job done. This is because there is a deep and abiding connection between this conventional way of doing a thesis and the scientific method.

The IMRAD formula follows the experimental method cycles and the language is designed to present the results as facts which exist apart from the researcher. In the scientific method the questions are raised before the experiments which are designed to answer them. Sure fresh questions will be probably be raised as the work progresses, but always to drive a new cycle of research.

But in other disciplines, this is not the case. Research questions may not be known in advance or may change substantially during the research – they may even only emerge clearly at the very end. There will not necessarily be experiments to generate data, but observations, interviews, painting, the making of car engines and so on.

There are many different ways of making knowledge where ideas, data and arguments are unlikely to fit easily into the conventional thesis ‘formula’ – yet some students feel compelled to torture them until they do. Or, like @TheMarquise, you may not set out to replicate this type of conventional thesis, yet still find that the dead hand is resting upon you because you freeze up when you try to write something ‘real’ – not jottings in a notebook.

At RMIT we tend to get three other kinds of thesis which do not follow the IMRAD formula: the ‘big book thesis’ (common to history and social sciences), the ‘bunch of papers’ (a collection of published articles,becoming popular in the sciences) and the creative exegesis (text accompanying art and design projects). When there is this variety, why has the IMRAD formula, so necessary in the sciences, come to haunt the rest of us?

There’s a good discussion of this in an article @julierudner sent me awhile back called “Thesis and dissertation writing: an examination of published advice and actual practice” by Brian Paltridge. Paltridge examined some 30 finished PhDs to see how closely they aligned with the type of advice given in the ‘how to do a PhD’ books. The findings were preliminary as the sample set was small, but I think the observations made in it were interesting.

Paltridge starts by analysing a range of texts available on the subject of thesis and dissertation writing. He includes some classics, such as Phillips & Pugh’s “How to get a PhD”, through to the eternally useful “How to write a thesis” by Evans and Gruba as well as some less useful ones. Paltridge found these books vary as to the amount of advice that they give on the overall organisation of a thesis, but all are light on when it comes to suggestions about structure. Some of the less useful ones devote as little as 3 pages to the issue!

Paltridge claims that most authors, when they do discuss structure, tend to outline the ‘IMRAD’ formula in simple or more complex forms. Virtually none of the ‘how to’ books provided advice on other ways of structuring a thesis, most likely because the author is trying to address multiple disciplines. The ‘how to’ genre needs to be read with this issue front of mind – more specific advice will often needed.

While there are some books which offer this (one of my favourites is  ‘Authoring a PhD’ by Patrick Dunleavy who writes advice specifically for the ‘big book’ thesis writers) they are few and far between – perhaps because publishers worry they wont sell enough. The fall back advice is to look to examples of passed theses for models for your thesis. While this can be useful, I would add the caveat that these thesis documents would often be revised by the authors given half the chance – I know I would!

So if you find yourself being pressed under the dead hand of the thesis genre remember that the summary judgment of your thesis by the examiner will be made on how well your thesis ‘sings the song’ of the content within it. Your job is to make that song lively – not a funeral dirge!

In memory of Maria Cugnetto

Today I received some sad news that Maria Cugnetto, one of our PhD students here at RMIT had passed away. We are all diminished by her loss. I always enjoyed her company and wish I had time to get to know her better.

This obituary is written by Angela Di Pasquale, another RMIT PhD student, in memory and tribute to Maria and her work.

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“Friendship is the inexpressible comfort of feeling safe; having neither to weigh thoughts nor measure words.” George Eliot

If you knew Maria Cugnetto, this may well be how you feel about her. It is how her family and friends will always remember Maria. Maria passed away on Wednesday, 18^th August, after a three year fight with cancer.

I met Maria by chance on June 2^nd, 2010 at a workshop run by the School of Graduate Research at RMIT.  From over my shoulder I heard: “So, you are doing the Wittenoom project?” I turned around and there was this petite, dark haired woman, with smiling eyes, whose softly-spoken voice had uttered the question. Not my image of an engineer, but as we talked I found out that this was her field. I also got the sense that she kept abreast with university life.

Over the next two months as I got to know her, I came to see that her family was everything to her, but her work was also very much one of her passions (as well as chocolate). She had a gentle sense of humour which lit up her face, with her gorgeous smile. Her commitment to her family, her friends, her work, her colleagues – to whatever she was engaged in – were evident to me. Her strong desire and efforts to instill trust and confidence, in her personal and professional relationships, also shone through.

It was during our first conversation that day in June that she shared with me some of her story. You could not help but engage with her. This petite lady, from that first encounter, displayed the courage and strength she has had to call upon, at various times during her life. She shared with me that she had breast cancer, had had brain surgery, a consequence of her illness, and that she was continuing treatment.

Maria had started her PhD in 2007 but her illness had prevented her from continuing. She applied and was granted a year’s leave, only to find out later, that somehow she had lost her scholarship. The situation Maria found herself in highlighted unforeseen issues with the system of research funding. Although no one person ‘broke the rules’, it was clear to all that heard of Maria’s plight that an injustice had occurred, merely because a circumstance such has hers had not been imagined when the rules were written. It was clear that the system needed to be changed.

Now anyone who has worked with a government bureaucracy will know that for a single person with limited resources fighting ‘the system’ is hard – especially when you are pretty sure that there is a big chance you will fail.  Another person faced with this situation may well have decided it was not worth the effort, especially if they were sick and in pain.

But not Maria.

Like the meticulous engineer she was and with the skills of the PhD researcher, which RMIT lauds in their students, she set about to discover what had happened and why. Patiently, she found the evidence and then systematically and graciously presented her case to the relevant people in RMIT and outside of it. Her flawless case could not but return to her a scholarship. While it was not the one which was rightfully hers, nevertheless justice had prevailed, but the process was a long one. These were stresses which Maria did not need as she sought to turn her illness around, yet she continued to fight with dogged determination until all the matters were resolved.

Maria would be able to come back when she was ready to complete her postponed thesis, in the area of energy. I will not even attempt to explain it. Instead I have included below the first draft of the three minute thesis, which she sent to me in July. It is testament to Maria’s keen mind and intellect.  Even though she was still not officially enrolled, she was continuing to complete tasks, in preparation for her return.

She once told Inger that she found PhD scholarship a joy, a privilege and something worth fighting for; she explained how her illness made her acutely aware of these things, which might otherwise have been lost if she had been like most PhD students, who assume they will have time to finish what they started.

One time, Maria proudly showed me the file of documents she was adding to what she had previously accumulated to complete her thesis. She spoke enthusiastically of her plans. As she was dealing with her health challenges Maria was also preparing for an energy conference in October – a field dear to her heart and to which she has contributed significantly and on an international level for many years.

Those of you who have known her will understand what a source of inspiration she will always be in our lives. Despite her debilitating illness, Maria willingly shared her time and her keen mind with the people she met and touched, in so many different ways. If you have had the pleasure of meeting Maria, this news of her passing will shock and deeply sadden. For those of you who knew her not, her story is here to inspire you in your quest for rewarding scholarship and knowledge – two things Maria passionately extolled.

Till we meet again, Maria.

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Below is the first draft of Maria’s 3 minute thesis. Of course, the research is pertinent and the way Maria was approaching it was straight forward, so that a novice like me could understand. She would have won hearts, if she had presented:

So we want to reduce our carbon footprint because that is a good thing to do for the environment. That’s what we hear, what we read and what is associated with climate change. And yes, climate change is something on the national agenda for Australia and the rest of the world.

So what do we do? Do we do it individually or as a community? These are the questions that require detail and direction. In our modern world, our lifestyles have changed to be more complex than in years gone by. Today we use more energy than ever before and this increases year-by-year. It is a digital world and we need energy to power our everyday tasks and activities. We use energy to power computers, 3D TVs, mobile phones, rechargeable batteries, electronic games, electronic organizers, electrical appliances, refrigerated air-conditioning, central heating, microwaves, 6-burner cook ranges, automatic defrosting refrigerators, dryers, washing machines and dishwashers.

An optimist would say “We can’t decrease our energy needs because of our current lifestyles. So what we need is renewable energy (so that we can use as much energy as we need, without guilt or responsibility of generating greenhouse gas (GHG) emissions).” That must be the solution. However, in the electrical world, having 100% renewable energy is not possible as renewable energy is intermittent. The wind does not always blow and the sun does not always shine. This means there is no guarantee on the reliability of electricity supply, the quality of electricity supply and the continuity of electricity supply. It also means that the source of electricity generation used today, i.e. coal-fired power stations in the Latrobe Valley in Victoria,  must continue, and therefore continue to emit GHG and carbon emissions. This needs to continue until coal-fired generation is transitioned to gas-fired generation and renewables are integrated into the electricity grid and supporting infrastructure developed. Capital investment and time is required for this to occur. That still leaves us with GHG emissions and climate change comes back into the picture as a problem and a challenge.

So, where do we go and what is to be done? A pessimist would say, “We need to use less energy and decrease our GHG emissions, because our source for power generation still includes coal.” Coal is the backbone of the Latrobe Valley in Victoria and that means livelihoods for communities and families. This is economics, technology and people at play. There is an integration that must be devised to meet the challenge and to deliver results.

My research is about looking at the technical aspects of power supply infrastructure, smart technological devices to measure and monitor power usage. My research is also about the people and how people use electrical power, what people think of power and energy, can people use less energy? Is energy different to reduce by individuals compared with water? People have responded to the water campaigns. Will people respond to energy and electrical power campaigns? Re energy usage, what are people’s moral position on energy, attitudes on energy and sustainability? Will people use less energy if the price of electricity increases dramatically? Is energy viewed by people as water is viewed? Water is life threatening and must be saved for survival on this planet. Is energy viewed by people as having to be saved in order to be able to live on this planet? Is society accepting of energy reduction or energy conservation? Do we need a crisis for people to take notice of energy usage and then the lowering of energy usage? Will people adapt to using less energy? The whole area of consumer behaviour with respect to energy usage comes into place.

The solution seems to be made up of all three, i.e. technology, economics and social science (people). It seems an integrated approach is inevitable because if any one of the three, on its own, was the solution, then we would already have the solution. The fact is technology solutions, since the 1970s, have not worked on their own.

People, on their own, have not solved the energy challenge and this is evident in the annual increases in GHG emissions. Economics, by itself, has not been the solution. People still pay electricity bills every three months without blinking an eyelid about the usage during that period. The electricity usage challenge is not on people’s radar and they have not been educated or given an opportunity to assist in the solution.

In my research, I will explain what has worked to date, what may work. I will review the reforms to date, policies in place, results from trials and analyse trial results to determine differences and similarities in order to understand what can be recommended for the current challenges we face with energy usage.

What are you learning while you do your PhD? (maybe not what you expected!)

This is the first guest post by Mary-Helen Ward, who is doing a PhD at the University of Sydney

When you enrol for a PhD you don’t have much idea about what you will learn. Sure, you have an idea of what you are going to investigate, and you may even have some idea of how you might go about doing that.

You’ll probably start talking to your new supervisor about your project in those terms: what I want to find out about and how I think I might do that. But very quickly you will find that doing a PhD is about much more than that. It’s going to take you between 3 and 8 years, depending on whether you are full-time or part-time.Either way it’s going be a good slice of your life.

You will learn heaps – about yourself and about your discipline and about academia – and a lot of it won’t be things you could have anticipated.

My PhD is in Education, and I’m investigating how the student experience of doing a PhD at my research-intensive Uni contrasts with the (limited) theory of how and what people learn when they’re doing a PhD in Australia and my University’s story of what a PhD can -  or should  – be.

I’ve listened to lots of people on the campus, as well of course to students, as I’m coming to form the ideas that will be the basis of my thesis. The short story is that I’ve learned that PhD students are in a kind of shadowland that I call a liminal space. Most of what they learn isn’t planned at the beginning – it just happens through the process.

As you’ve probably figured out, there isn’t a clear plan at most unis for how you will do your PhD. It’s not like enrolling in a unit of study with published ‘learning outcomes’ and a syllabus of topics to be covered with set assessment tasks. There might or might not be some coursework or skills workshops, and you will probably have to present a formal proposal at the end of a set period of time in order to have your candidature confirmed.

Most Unis now have some kind of regular review process, where you meet with people who aren’t your direct supervisor(s) to talk about your progress. There may be a requirement for you to do formal presentations at various points in the process. If you’re working in a team there may be a fairly clear role for you in that team, which may involve completing set tasks to contribute to the bigger picture of the project.

But for many students the reality is that the first thing they learn is that it’s up to them what they learn, and the only thing they will assessed on is the thesis they will write.

Jim Cumming, in his interesting thesis Representing the complexity, diversity and particularity of the doctoral enterprise in Australia, had the clever idea of mining his case study interviews for ‘pedagogical moments’ – points or processes in their doctoral studies during which people learned things. He was interested in how people identify what they learned and the pedagogical mechanisms involved (how they learned these things).

Cummings found out that the people he interviewed identified lots of things that they’d learned that they hadn’t expected to. Things like how a workplace team functions, for instance, or how to get the best from technical support staff, or how research funding can shape the outcomes of research. Many learnt how to apply the principles of project management when collecting data, or how to compile data in order to write a very big document. Some might have learnt how to work with an absent supervisor or on an international project.

Here’s some of my pedagogical moments:

• I’ve learnt that I can walk into the offices of even very senior academics and they will be interested in my work and generous with their time. This has made me feel much more confident about my paid work at the Uni as well.
• I’ve learnt that when I do presentations, sometimes people respond critically. I listen and respond, but they might still not be satisfied. Sometimes this has to remain unresolved - and I can’t fix that.
• I’ve learnt that people may appear enthusiastic about a project, but it can be very difficult to get them to actually engage. I’ve learned to judge when to give up!

When you finish your PhD you’ll probably be looking for employment. I’m told by the Careers Service at my Uni that many people with sparkly new PhDs, coming to the job market, find it hard to articulate the skills that they’ve gained during their candidature.

So ask yourself: what you’re learning that you didn’t expect to? What are you learning that might be contributing to your own professional and personal growth as well as your thesis? It could make all the difference when you’re looking for work later.

PhD rage

This is a picture of one of the rather nice glass doors in my apartment. If you look closely you will notice there’s a big crack in it, right next to the handle. I blame this crack on Chapter five of my PhD.

To this day I don’t know how it happened, but I managed to cut and paste a crucial piece of text into an old draft file and save it  in my trash folder. Of course I didn’t realise this is what I had done – I just flipped out when I hit ‘paste’ and the expected text did not appear.

My dear husband had the misfortune to be sitting next to me at the time and nearly jumped out of his skin when I started yelling “Where is my TEXT you [insert not for blog swear word] computer!” Naturally when he asked the sensible question:  “When did you last save it?” I yelled at him.

To his credit he just looked at me like I was a crazy person and said mildly “Don’t take it out on me”. Since he wouldn’t let me pick a fight I had no choice but to flounce out of the room, slamming the door behind me.

My exceedingly nice. Glass. Art deco.  Expensive to fix door… Oh Dear.

You probably have a similar story of PhD rage. I say this because doing a PhD can make even the most calm, sensible person irrational, frustrated, obsessive – even certifiably INSANE (hopefully only for short periods of time). It certainly can make you hard to live with. I don’t know if anyone has studied how many divorces are done under the influence of a PhD, but there’s got to be a few.

I share this story because @emma-reid asked me for tips on managing a family and doing a PhD and there’s not too much written on the subject. I don’t have all the answers, but I thought I would share some of my own tactics by way of encouraging you to write in with more:

1. Don’t ask, don’t tell:

I found my topic fascinating, but I tried to remember that my supervisor was paid to listen to me talk about it, not my poor friends and partner.  My family would often ask me how it was going, but most times it was really small talk to show they were concerned, like asking me whether I was feeling better after a cold – which is rather nice when you think about it.

I usually answered with a joke so they didn’t have to become emotionally invested in my struggles. If they really wanted details they would ask and I would try to think of an angle on it they might find interesting. I believe this studied reticence was why some of them even asked if they could read it when I finished (bless them!).

2. Work it baby:

Unless you are taking part in a really structured hobby activity, like sailing or something, you probably wont have hobby time scheduled into your week. So if everyone sees you always doing PhD on the weekend or late at night – the times that other people do hobbies – they will be inclined to think your PhD is some sort of hobby too. This is unfair – especially for part time students, but it is an unhappy truth. Since it is not ‘real’ work people may ask you out for coffee or to a BBQ during your work time – because you need a break right?

Actually you need to work. So what can you do about it? I think  the key is make a schedule and stick to it – morning or evening whatever works for you and let people know it. When they kindly ask you out, instead of saying $%^# off!, you can say: “I’d love a break! After 3pm I will be free”. Which leads me to point three:

3. Don’t spend excessive amounts of time on your PhD:

What’s that I hear you say? ” Come again Inger are you mental!?” Well It’s my opinion that just because Mr or Mrs Bottom is paying a visit to Chair Town  doesn’t mean you are  necessarily being productive.

I could only do PhD writing for 2 hours at a time; after that it was a game of diminishing returns. As long as I did two hours straight in the morning I would give myself license to read email, surf, read papers, go for coffees – whatever else took my fancy for the rest of the day. It obviously worked for me because I finished my PhD early.

4. What’s good for the goose:

I often found myself working next to husband who was merrily killing stuff in World of Warcraft. I tried to remind myself that PhD study asks you to give a up a lot – but that is your choice and you get the benefits later. Others shouldn’t have to give up their enjoyments just because you can’t join in. I tried not to resent that I had to work and he didn’t. I did not always succeed, but I think he appreciated the effort.

5. Feel the love:

I found it hard to adjust to being a student as a grown up because my old ‘just in time’ study methods did not work anymore. At times I resented my family and the time limits they placed on me, but I tried to remind myself that having people (or animals!) love you and depend on you is a good thing. You are less likely to waste time if you know it is a precious resource. It’s easy to leave finishing that conference paper to the last minute if you don’t have the kids to pick up from daycare, the dog to walk or your partner waiting for you at the movies.

That’s my four rules to live by if you want to keep your friends and stay married while you do your PhD. What are yours?

Oh – and one day that door will get fixed I’m sure.

Voices from the front line

When I started the Whisperer I was hoping it would become a collaborative affair. If you read the ‘about’ page you will see I put a list of, for lack of a better way of describing it, ‘editorial guidelines’ to suggest ways others might contribute. In particular I was hoping that PhD students would write in and reflect on their experiences for the benefit of others.

I’m happy to say I have my first PhD student piece to present this week. @TheMarquise is doing a PhD by creative project in Fine Arts within an Australian University. Project based PhDs usually involve making things which count as ‘words’, so the text work is generally less. However I think it’s fair to say this does not make their job much easier.

The difficulty with doing a PhD by creative project largely stems from the fact that it is a relatively new model of research. Artists, architects, fashion designers and such people never used to bother doing a PhD because, well, they didn’t need to. They could easily make art, draw buildings and design clothes without one. Used to be they could teach people to do these things without one, but, as competition for jobs in the university sector becomes more intense, a PhD has become an entry ticket into academia.

@TheMarquise, like many other students working in creative disciplines with an evolving research culture, is finding that knowing what constitutes a Project based PhD in fine art- and finding out the best way to go about doing one – can be difficult. Again, like many PhD students, @TheMarquise is past her mid 30s and has left a successful professional life prior to her recent return to study.

In this short post she reflects on working solo and wonders: does her life as a professional help with her thesis - or not?

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Jun 29, 2010

How am I REALLY feeling about this PhD by project, so far?

isolated
bewildered
unsure of myself
determined
reticent
detached
old and tired
novice
proud

I say ‘proud’ because I believe it is pride that is currently keeping me in the running. I kind of feel as if I’m in a reality TV show where I don’t know who the other contestants are, who has been voted off, or even how contestants behaved last season. So, my basic recourse of action is to be proud, to use pride to keep me going. Whatever the circumstances, I shall persevere.

God dammit.

I also feel an immense sense of ‘unworthiness’. I feel surrounded by exceedingly talented people and can’t believe that I would be considered one  of their peers. Why was I chosen for this opportunity? Is my work good  enough? Will I ever feel like I’m on par?

Reminding myself that I am only 3.5 months in doesn’t help. My ‘professional brain’ that has been in action for the last 10 years keeps screaming ‘Common! This project is way over schedule! I’ll have to give it to another  project manager. We have a major exhibition to open in 3 years people. Work the problem!’

And if anything, I believe it is my ‘professional brain’ that will pull me through this period of wilderness. I know I am capable of working to excruciating deadlines, of being creative under pressure, of thinking logically and laterally, of making regular reports, of being accountable, of working in a team . . .  oh, that would be it.

It’s just me.

I’d always thought that the ‘just me’ bit would be immensely liberating. And it quite possibly is. I just haven’t experienced it yet. It’s pretty telling that ‘isolated’ was the first word on my list. In small ways, I’ve made contact with my fellow PhDers, but given that the majority of us are aged over 30 years and have jobs, partners, children, or other commitments to manage, we don’t see a lot of each other. It’s difficult to maintain a sense
of scholarly, or artistic, identity when you feel so isolated.

So for now, pride and my ‘professional brain’ will keep me going. I hope the creative and scholarly sides of myself find their groove soon, but I guess  I’ll have to go easy on them.

For now.

@TheMarquise

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We’d love to hear about others facing the challenge of becoming a student again after a full professional life.