I’ve just ticked off the first real milestone on my journey to doctorhood. It was called a “presentation for candidature” and basically I had to present my proposal for what my actual thesis topic will cover and how I’ll go about accomplishing this small feat within a timely manner. Fortunately, the panel of narrow-eyed professors critiquing my work found it within their hearts to approve the plans which will guide my academic life until sometime in 2022.
So after 8 months of living in “limbo” I’m finally confirmed as an actual PhD student. Hooray! And now I know what your thinking. You’re either thinking, “All this time just to get his project approved?”, or perhaps, “All this time Ben was just pretending to be a PhD student?”, or , “Ben’s doing a really great job. Good on him! He’s such an awesome guy!”. I know that last one will resonate with a lot of you and I thank you for the kind thoughts, but to clear things up, now that I’ve been confirmed it means there are some huge changes coming for me. From now on I have access to a budget. So I’m allowed to buy some pens and notebooks and stuff. Hooray.
I’ve learned early that there will never be another time in my life quite like the next few PhD years. There are pros and cons to it of course and I thought I’d highlight a few of them for those of you that have ever wondered about scholarly endeavours.
PRO: You don’t really have a boss. Besides your principal supervisor, whom you might touch base with once a fortnight, not one person has any expectations of you for your day-to-day productivity. Of course, there are the two or three milestones which need to be met throughout your scholarship but besides that, your calendar is essentially empty. You make what you want of your schedule. Choose to meander lazily through the days or choose to populate your weeks with back-to-back meetings. You can work the next three years from your couch for all anyone cares. And that’s the great truth — Nobody actually cares what your doing!
CON: Nobody actually cares what your doing. The thing about carving your own unique skill-set within a niche area of knowledge is that — well, it’s niche. Nobody around you has any investment in your topic. They will usually be nice enough to at least feign excitement at any achievements or breakthroughs you have but apathy will be the trend amongst your fellow PhD’s. You learn to celebrate wins on your own and frankly, you’ll be the first to return the favour because their area is not your area.
PRO: More time for side hustles. I’m pretty big on doing what you can to value-add to your time as PhD student. Being a psuedo-intellectual will only get so far. Getting dirty with some hands on experience will be pretty useful after you emerge from your 3-year cocoon of reading and writing. I hope so at least!
CON: It’s a lonely life. Embarking on a PhD is a solo project. This is your work and it’s your area of expertise. The nature of having an incredibly specific project essentially quarantines you from the rest of the office. That divider that sits between you and your workmates desk is actually a skyscraper. A PhD is not a team exercise and so for the most part, the people around you couldn’t even help even if they wanted to. This means collaborative work is off the table and if things need to get done, you bear the load on your own. No one else will work late nights coding data with you or write a chapter of your thesis.
PRO: Your a student. It’s a refreshing day whenever you remember this fact. It’s easy to forget that the only essential things in your life are coffee and a wi-fi connection.
CON: You’re back to bottom rung. In my case at least this feels true. Having spent a few years in “the real world” before embarking on post-graduate study, enrolling back into Uni doesn’t quite bring the same thrill it did when I was 18. I used to be a valuable employee with important responsibilities but, I’ve abandoned all that to enter a new world where I sit at the bottom of my field. I know nothing, and I can do very little. If life were a game of Snakes and Ladders, this snake takes you at least halfway down the board. And by the looks of it, most of the other players have finished and moved on to bigger and better games.
PRO: It’s now your job to learn all the things you’ve ever wanted to learn. I like learning. Pre-PhD I was absorbing as much as I could from experienced professionals in my industry. Reading articles, listening to audio books, catching up on the latest research. Anything I was interested in and could help me do my job better, I wanted to know it. But it’s hard. That all has to be done in your spare time. After work or over lunch. I got pretty good at filling my commutes with podcasts or always having a book with me if I had to queue up for coffee. I’d even sneak in training videos between clients during work hours. But now? Well I’m a full-time student again. Oh boy, my scholarship is paying for me to pretty much just learn new stuff everyday. Pick a field your interested in and it’s 38 hours a week of guilt free reading, watching, listening, you name it. I can even sit staring out the window for hours on end just thinking about things (and I do!).
CON: It’s easy to get side-tracked. I’m only about 8 months in but these first few months are the most demanding in terms of deadlines. I’ve got coursework, assignments and prepping for my proposal. Even still, the attraction of procrastination is overwhelming. With very little tangible work, there’s no evidence to prove that you’ve wasted a day. It’s easy to convince yourself that playing guitar for 3 hours in the afternoon is crucial to your study of motor skill acquisition and pertains highly to your work in high-performance sport. I tell you — If PhD students were paid proportionate the words they wrote that week, there would be a lot of homeless scholars.
The PhD life has treated me well thus far. It’s relieving in a way to know that I have a plan for the next few years of my life although, ironically, it can still feel quite directionless. Often I wrestle with the ever-looming question — “so what will you do when your finished?”. It’s a burden that every PhD student grapples with as the fund on their scholarship grows closer and closer to zero. The thing is, the ultimate attraction in the PhD is the three-year buffer you get before you have to face real life. Every uni student is loathing the day when they will have to begin contributing to the betterment of society in some meaningful way. PhD’s just take that to the next level.
With candidature complete, I’ll be cruising through the next few weeks until pre-season kicks back off. I honestly don’t know what will be waiting for me in the new year but I’m excited to learn a few new things if I can.
