Tag: PhD support systems

Not ‘that’ kind of doctor

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On a flight home from a teaching block last week, there was a medical emergency on the plane. The crew, as they do in these situations, asked for a doctor to make himself or herself known (and then asked for any medical professional to come forward). A Swedish doctor sitting next to me stood up, and spent the rest of the flight with the passenger, until we landed and she was handed into the care of paramedics. This was my first such experience, and I fly often. I found myself, for a brief moment, thinking: ‘I wish right now I was ‘that’ kind of doctor – that I could help out here’.

But, I am not that kind of doctor. I call myself Dr. I have a right to that title. But, as a friend of mine said of his own similar title, after a similar experience on a flight last year, ‘It’s not the useful kind of Dr.’ I was talking to my son about this yesterday, and he asked: ‘well, what is the use then?’

This, of course, got me wondering: what kind of ‘doctor’ am I, and what can I help you with, in that role?

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Maybe a good place to start is thinking about what having a doctorate means. What can you do, or be, that you could not without one? The main aspect of the qualification, and the work involved in gaining this, is research capacity. Whether by ‘big book’ or publication, or art installation, the average PhD project is a research project. You are creating an argument in response to a research question, and that research question is asked because there is a knowledge gap in your field that needs to be filled. The main requirement of any PhD, at its core, is a contribution to knowledge in your (and perhaps even an allied) field of study and/or practice.

It follows then, that doing a doctorate enables you to expand your knowledge of a slice of the world – that related to your area of study, and your research problem and questions. But, to expand your own knowledge, and build on what is known to say something new, and valid, you need to do an awful lot of critical reading, writing, speaking and thinking. A doctorate, then, also enables you to gain, and develop, scholarly skills and practices. You learn to become a more efficient reader, and writer; you learn to make deeper connections between allied ideas and arguments, and critique those which seem incorrect or incomplete; you learn to articulate, in writing and speech, what you think and why you think it, and what it could mean in relation to other meanings. You learn to create a whole, and build that whole through creating and connecting parts – theory, literature, methods, data, and so on.

All of this work, then, over the 3 or 4 or 5 years it can take to research and write a doctoral thesis – in whichever mode you are writing yours in – offers you a sustained opportunity not just to actually do research and write about it, but also to reflect on the meta-level work involved. What forms of writing are more effective and persuasive than others? What kinds of verbs signal your intent in argumentation best? What kinds of structure work most effectively for different parts of the argument, to weave it all together? What does not work at all, and why? In other words, you have opportunities to work out not just what to write about or research, but also how and why to research it and write about it, following certain rules, or bending certain rules about doing and writing research in your field.

As a qualified ‘doctor’, then, you have the insight, learning and ability to offer other researchers, and postgraduate student writers, help with their own writing and research processes.

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You can do this as a formal supervisor, taking on the role of guide to your own postgraduate students, as your supervisor was a guide to you. You can do this as a writing coach or peer writing consultant, either in a writing centre, or in a more informal or private capacity. You can blog, as I and many others do, about research and writing, sharing what you have learned. There are different roles you can play, with a doctorate, to step up alongside a student who is struggling – experiencing some equivalent form of the medical emergency in my flight – and offer advice, an empathetic ear, guidance, and even direction where this is needed.

There is, then, quite a lot of usefulness in doing, and having, a doctorate. I may not be able to help you if you are having a heart attack, but I can help you create and carry through an argument in a paper; I can help you work out what you want to say in your paper or thesis, and follow a structured process that will enable you to say it more clearly and persuasively. I can offer broad-level advice, and fine-grained feedback. I can draw on my own learning, to walk alongside you as you work through similar learning, and hopefully help you learn from some of the missteps and mistakes I have learned from (even though I may have to let you make these too).

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In a higher education sector that, globally, seems to be marked increasingly by academics and scholars feeling isolated, overwhelmed, alone in their struggles, those who have the ability, and capacity to put their hand up and move forward when called on are increasingly needed, and valued. The more we are able to step alongside one another, as peers and as mentors, the less lonely and isolating the PhD journey will be – or any other research, writing and learning journey for that matter. I am not ‘that’ kind of doctor, then. But I can put my hand up, and I can help.

Setting up, maintaining, mending your support systems

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A friend of mine asked me recently how I managed to finish a PhD in three and a bit years, with a full-time job and a full-time homelife. I found it quite hard to answer her, especially given that, in retrospect, my PhD doesn’t seem all that difficult now (kind of like when you have done something really tough, like had a baby or run a marathon or climbed a mountain, and you think: ‘I could do that again, that wasn’t so bad!’ even though it was awful a lot of the time while you were going through it). So, I have thought a lot about this, and I think I finally have an answer.

I finished in the time I did because of the support I had. This support came in different forms, and I have divided it into four main kinds that made a big difference during my candidacy: home, personal, work, and PhD-specific.

I’ll start with home, because this, for me, was really important, and also really tough to manage consistently. I have a lovely husband and two lovely, but young, children who need me rather a lot. I also need to be there for them rather a lot, and like many parents I have organised my time and life around them since they were born, and a lot of who I am as a person is bound up in who I am as their mother. Not being very present or in control of all things parenting, therefore, was not really a viable option for me during my PhD. But, as I found out, it was really, really difficult to be a very full-time parent and partner, a very full-time academic, and a very committed PhD student (and not be very stressed and hysterical all the time). My husband, thankfully, is a very capable parent when I stand back and let him do things his way, instead of my way, and he was willing to put me and my PhD work ahead of his own in order to support me (for at least most of the three years). But, and this is the key, I really struggled to let that be. I struggled to let go of being all things to all of my family, and let him manage the kids and their lives so that I could focus on questions of theory, data, tense, fonts and all of that big and small PhD stuff I needed to focus on. It was only really in my final year, when I just had to finish, that I sort of got enough of the hang of letting go, and could actually focus on me and my work without feeling guilty or torn, or left out of what my husband and kids were getting up to while I was alone at my desk, writing. Support at home is essential, but you also need to let your home support you.

The second area where I needed, and was fortunate enough to receive, support and time was at work. I ran a small unit during my PhD and my time was largely my own to manage. This was very fortunate because I didn’t feel like I was clocking in and out with someone looking over my shoulder and accounting for each minute of my day. I was able to, some weeks, carve out a morning (and even have a day or two here and there at home) to focus on my PhD, having reorganised the rest of my workload around these PhD mornings or days. My close colleagues outside of my unit were encouraging, and in my final year accommodated (at least some of) my answers of ‘no, I can’t do that right now, ask me again next year’ with latitude for the most part. Again, though, a lot of what I received hinged on me asking for what I needed, and being firm, once I got the support, in letting it be. I had to learn to say ‘no’, which I am not very good at, and I had to learn to let people help me, also something I am not good at. I was fortunate – my close colleagues were a great source of kindness and support, which made up for the indifference from other less friendly colleagues and management. But I also had to find ways of asking for support and time and space in ways that did not put people’s backs up, or seem like I was asking for favours I was not due.  I learnt some valuable lessons about standing up for myself, and also about diplomacy, tact and timing.

A further area where I needed excellent support was in PhD-specific spaces of supervision and peer-groups. I was part of a structured PhD programme with an active online listserv and regular contact weeks where we all got together for workshops, lectures, seminars and supervision sessions. This support, along with the excellent supervision I received, took at least a year off my PhD in my opinion, as I had both real support, and also imagined chastisement if I did not make progress. I had, in other words, people who were keeping tabs on me, although completely supportively and kindly, and this accountability translated into me egging myself on because I didn’t want to let any of them down (and by extension let myself down). Reaching out to form a PhD support group where you feel you are not all on your own, and that your progress, struggles, and triumphs matter to others, can be a crucial source of support.

Finally, I had to learn to be my own support. I had to learn to encourage myself, and be warm and kind rather then mean and derogatory, especially when days of doing no PhD work turned into weeks and stagnation rather than progress was the order of things. I had to make time for myself, and tell myself that this time was not indulgent, or taking time away from my kids or work: that it was necessary and important and worth protecting. This was really difficult, all the way through. It still is. However, doing the PhD taught me to be kinder to myself, and to be more supportive of my own research, my own achievements and my own struggles. If I am not on my own side, how can I convince others that it’s a side they should be on too? I am much more of a cheerleader for myself now, giving myself more of the kindness I find easier to give to others.

Support systems are not easy to set up, maintain, and especially to mend if they have fallen apart. They require care, time and emotional energy, and these things are often in short supply during a PhD candidacy. However, without these four different kinds of support, something as long, challenging, often lonely and also triumphant as doing a PhD would be much more difficult than it could or should be.

My PhD is… How do you represent your PhD to yourself and others?

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I follow ‘Shit Academics Say’ on Facebook, and the inspiration for this post comes from a post on their feed (similar to the image below).

PhD students have such a range of experiences of, and feelings about, doing their PhDs. A basic sense of human psychology tells us that repressing emotions and feelings, positive or negative, can lead to people feeling alone, odd, alienated, stuck, and depressed. As Meg Ryan said to Kevin Kline in ‘French Kiss’: ‘Express, not repress!’ So, these PhD experiences and emotions need to be expressed, preferably to those who will listen and be able to offer support, and even guidance or useful help. But, in giving voice to these feelings and experiences, it is worth thinking about what we do say to ourselves about our PhDs and how we represent them to ourselves and to others. If our words can speak things into being – feelings or experiences – then our words about our research can be powerful tools that either pull us down or lift us up.

A quick glance into the world of what people are telling Google Search about their PhDs yields this result:

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Other than the rather fun suggestion about a PhD in dance, the three options Google chooses to autocomplete this sentence with are negative: ‘worthless’, ‘boring’, ‘killing me’. The options Google selected are based (if I understand how this works accurately) on how many times people have typed these words into Google to search for resources or help. Why are so many PhD experiences (if this snapshot is any kind of indication) so negative? Why is the PhD more often than not framed as a long, arduous, lonely trudge, as opposed to a challenging, stimulating and ultimately empowering thing? Why is there not, in the more popular discourses around PhD study, more of an emphasis on what the PhD offers a scholar; the ups rather than the downs? People have done research that answers some of these questions, and I’d like to use this post to offer some of my thoughts on why this might be.

I represented my own PhD in different ways at different points. Early on it was a millstone, a source of great anxiety and stress. Around the proposal stage I felt quite excited as my plans took shape and I could see what lay ahead, even though I was still anxious about whether I could actually do what I was proposing. Writing the theoryology was mostly tough, and I said lots of unrepeatable things about the theory, my PhD and academia in general. I was mostly anxious, with small bits of delight in writing a section that looked and sounded really ‘Dr-ish’. Generating data and transcribing it was mainly tedious, although the analysis and writing of the ‘findings’ chapters was actually enjoyable, because it brought all the theory to life. This is a small snapshot of my representation of my PhD. There was constant anxiety, really (I am an anxious person generally), but over and above this there was exhaustion, stress, uncertainty on the ‘minus’ side, and delight, enjoyment, learning and satisfaction on the ‘plus’ side.

A PhD can’t be all plus or all minus, I don’t think. It takes too long to just be one or the other. Although some of my colleagues have loved their PhDs overall, they experienced tough, lonely and frustrating patches. And those who have had a hard time overall have also had moments, even small, where they have felt enlightened, stimulated and elated, even (think of that call to say the proposal was accepted, or being told a chapter draft is done for now because it’s good enough and you can move on to the next one). But the minuses, and Inger Mewburn has made this point in her writing, are often easier to talk about with others than the plusses – perhaps because of the more general discourses around PhDs that highlight the struggles over the enjoyment.

In some ways, it felt to me at times that I needed to make my PhD more of an enemy than I generally felt it was in order to be ‘in’ with colleagues who were struggling. I did not feel I could sit with them and say, ‘Oh, I love my PhD. I am really enjoying it right now. The writing is going so well!’ when they were saying versions of ‘My supervisor is so distant. I have no support at work. I can’t do this anymore’. I could complain about being tired, frustrated, confused, and discouraged at various points, and I certainly did. But I felt hesitance at representing my PhD in more positive terms in front of certain audiences, especially other students who were having a tough time. I am sure I was not alone in feeling this hesitance and, at times, even talking my PhD down rather than up so as not to alienate myself.

We all represent, and misrepresent, our PhDs in different ways and for different reasons: to fit in, to gain a sense of solidarity, to find empathy and care, to work through what we are feeling and try to move past especially negative feelings and experiences. The issue for me is this: if you feel like you spend more of your time talking your PhD and by extension yourself down, you are almost certainly putting up obstacles to completing your research successfully, and you are probably increasing your anxiety and misery. I am not advocating that you start lying to yourself and others and saying your PhD is fabulous when it really is not. If you struggling, and you need help, care and support, you need to be able to ask for it. But, I think I am saying that (hopefully) it’s not all doom and gloom all the time. There are reasons you took this on, and motivations you have, and these could be framed more positively to focus you on your ‘ups’, for example the learning and intellectual growth you experience, the connections with communities of scholars, either face-to-face or virtually, and the personal sense of achievement in taking on and succeeding at such a challenging undertaking.

If you are battling to see the light, consider starting a research journal: write to yourself not just when you are down and your PhD is boring or killing you, but also when you are up: have had a good meeting with your supervisor, or a supportive coffee with fellow PhD students, or a productive writing day. Talking your PhD up more often, to yourself and others, may help to mitigate against the downs, and may contribute to you feeling less burdened by the PhD, and more engaged by, and in, it on the whole.

 

Can you quit your PhD?

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I had a conversation with a dear friend of mine a few weeks ago about her PhD, which is floundering a little at the moment and is a source of great stress and anxiety right now. Rather than something she looks forward to working on, her PhD is a millstone around her neck, and she is seriously wondering if she can or should carry on with it in its present form. Earlier this week I logged in to Facebook to hear that another friend has deregistered from her PhD studies for the time being, taking a break of indefinite length. So, I have been wondering: can you quit your PhD, and if you do, how do you make that decision okay for yourself?

I wrote last year about my own struggles early on in my PhD with finding a balance between it and my life and work, and how I suspended my studies before eventually coming back to them. I think that, as a PhD student who has already invested your self, time, money and also often your family’s/friend’s time (and either their or a funder’s money) in your studies, the decision to stop and walk away is never one you can make impulsively or lightly. There are several things you may have to consider, over and above your own feelings, desires and struggles. This post is a tough one to write, because I would never want to discourage a PhD scholar who is already feeling discouraged. But I think that we don’t really talk about this issue very much; rather the dominant discourses focus on saying some version of ‘Just get it done, it’s just a PhD. Just finish it, and everything will be fine. Hang in there, come on, you can do this!’ It’s great to give and get this kind of encouragement, but sometimes, it’s not helpful when a PhD student can’t ‘just do it’ and really needs to at least consider, for a range of reasons, deregistering and moving on to other things.

So what do you do if you, or a friend/colleague/PhD supervisee, is sitting on this fence, and wondering: ‘Can I quit my PhD? Should I quit? Will I be okay if I do?’ Perhaps a useful place to start is with all of the things you/your person needs to consider. For example, are you paying for your PhD yourself, or do you have funding? If you have funding, are there stipulations in the fine print about reimbursing the funder if you do not complete your PhD? These are big considerations if you are paying a lot of money for your PhD, and if you have funding that comes with expectations of completion in a certain period of time. If you or a family member are paying for your studies, this is perhaps an easier call because the financial obligations can be more flexible. However, if you do need to take time off, or even walk away from your PhD completely, consider approaching your funder and negotiating as far as possible with them. Perhaps there is a plan to be made.

Another big consideration (one that really troubled me when I considered quitting my PhD) was the investment I had already made in the PhD – my identity, my self, my time. But I had not done this alone. I had asked my husband, children and family to invest with me: in encouraging me, supporting me, making compromises and sacrifices on my behalf to enable me to have time to work on my PhD. They believed in me. How could I walk away and let them all down? How could I let myself down? My feelings of shame and failure were also compounded by my own perfectionism, and the sometimes stupidly high standards to which I hold myself. I needed, in making my decision to suspend and walk away temporarily, to separate my own needs and investments from theirs, and tell myself that, while they were undoubtedly in this with me, they were not actually doing the PhD. That was all on me, so I needed to make this decision for me, and not for them. I reasoned that if I was okay with my decision, they would eventually be okay too. If I was miserable, they would certainly have suffered with me.

A third consideration is the reasons for which you are doing the PhD. Is it for primarily professional reasons: you need a PhD in order to be recognised formally, awarded research funding, promotions and status? Is for primarily personal reasons: having one or not will not make an enormous difference in your working life, but you are personally driven by a desire to complete a PhD, and gain from the experience in terms of your own development as a scholar and a thinker? In my experience thus far, working with colleagues who are doing PhDs as well as with postgraduate student-writers, it’s always a bit of both, although one set of reasons is usually a bit more prominent than the other. I do think, as someone who did the PhD to get ahead professionally, but also because I really wanted to do it for myself, that focusing on my personal, intrinsic motivations and reasons helped me to find my way back to my PhD, and helped me to sustain my motivation to complete it through the ups and downs that followed my re-registration. Focusing on the extrinsic pressures made me feel resentful, pressured and sulky. I felt I was being forced into something that did not completely fit into my life as a working mother. I felt cross that I should even need a PhD to be taken seriously, when I had other valuable experience and input to offer. I am not sure I would have had the PhD journey I did if the external reasons for the PhD were my sole focus. I think coming back would have been harder, and I would have taken longer to complete my thesis.

The point of this post is not to tell any students that they should, or should not, quit their PhD. A PhD is a big, all-consuming, intense thing to take on, and the amount of yourself that a thoroughly researched and well-written PhD demands is huge. But, if you are on this fence, feeling stuck and wondering if quitting will free you or make things harder in the long run, perhaps working through these considerations will be a helpful starting place in making your own decision about how to carry on from here. I would like to say, though, that if you do quit your PhD, you will be okay. A PhD is, in the end, a qualification (as someone on Twitter said recently); it’s not an identity itself, it’s not you, and it’s not what makes you worthy of recognition.

Experiencing a PhD journey by proxy

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This is a post for all the partners of PhD students, going through many of the ups and downs of the PhD process with their student-partner.

Our partners – boyfriends, girlfriends, husbands, wives, lifepartners, good friends even  – are a very big part of our PhD journeys, and they share in the anxieties, the lostness when we don’t understand what we are trying to do, the foundness when we work it out, the elation when a chapter gets good feedback, the despair when it doesn’t, and so on. In many cases a partner is an unofficial part of the supervision team. They often have to listen to us bleat on (and on) about data and fieldwork and theory and confusion and ‘aha’ moments, while nodding and smiling and being encouraging (ideally). And, they often have interesting and useful insights and questions that can help us to see things differently or more clearly. This was definitely so for me, as I spent a lot of time talking to my husband about various parts of my thesis, and his advice, questions and insights made a big impact on my own journey.

As a partner you don’t have to be an academic or knowledgeable about the field of study to help a PhD student. A friend and colleague told me recently that one of the people who helped her most with her thesis thinking was her daughter, who was in high school at the time. Another colleague took long walks with her partner, a banker I think, and their dogs and talked and talked about what she had worked on that day while he listened, asked questions and just spent time being there for her as a sounding board. Often, the most helpful thing is to have someone other than just ourselves or our supervisors to talk to, someone who doesn’t know our work as well as we do who can listen, and perhaps also ask for clarification or make observations, but really just listen. We can often make connections or clarify our thinking just by talking an idea or a problem through with someone who is able to just be there for us as a listener.

What also helps is tea, hugs and knowing when to say ‘I know, theory sucks. Stop reading and come for a walk on the beach rather’ and when to say ‘I know theory sucks but you need to keep going. One more hour and you can have some cake’. It’s not easy living with a PhD student – the ups can be so lovely and cheerful and the downs can be really awful, with (if you were my poor husband) lots of sulking and sighing and wandering around looking morose alternating with hysterical claims of ‘I will never get this! I shouldn’t even be doing a PhD! I don’t even know what epistemology means!’ The point is that partners are important, whoever they are, and they are needed, even if they have no clue what epistemology means either. So, if you are a partner of a PhD student, take heart. The madness doesn’t last forever, you will get your girlfriend/boyfriend/husband/wife/lifepartner/friend back again, and your help, in whatever form it comes, is really appreciated even if we are too self/PhD-absorbed at the time to say so. And to my husband, who reads this blog, thank you love. You rock.