FIRST YEAR OF PHD SURVIVED!
Well the first year of the PhD is just about over. So what would I say to someone who is just starting, what lessons have I learnt this year, what has the experience been like? A summary:
– At first I didn’t really have much idea to start with what a PhD was all about, or my pre-conceived ideas did not match reality. I didn’t even realise it was a book with chapters on different pre-set categories (ie background, methodology, literature review). It took awhile to grasp the whole concept (which seems so obvious now) that it is all about first working out what you want to find out about, then seeing what people have already found out about this and modifying your research goals based on this, then working out how you will research it, then actually doing the research (some sort of data gathering/generation) then writing about what you have found out. I wish I had been told this in plain language at the start – would have been much clearer to me! I think it would be different if you had done a previous research degree like a masters. My masters was coursework not research so the whole thing was brand spanking new to me.
– It is weird feeling like you are back in kindergarten again. You are such an insignificant part of the whole field of research and even when you do research something ultimately your contribution will just be a drop in the ocean of what else is, has been, and will be researched eg a line in a work somewhere that says Salter 2014 and that’s it! It is a real challenge to the ego to realise you are the baby again. So many of us are coming in with lots of prior educational experiences and lots of knowledge and expertise in our fields all to discover that in the world of doctoral academia it all really counts for nothing.
– I definitely felt envious this year of people who were so much further along and here we were just starting out. It will be nice next year not to be the first years and to have jumped through the hoops and highs and lows of the first year and have that behind us.
– It seems that self-doubts are common feelings in the first year (and beyond perhaps?). Many people say they felt like they were imposters, like someone would eventually realise they didn’t really belong there and that they had been admitted to doctoral studies by mistake. You feel like you aren’t good enough and you perhaps will not be able to meet the standards. You feel like everyone else is more intellectual than you, everyone else is more switched on and fits in better into the academic world. You feel like you are inferior and the academic world is an exclusive club that has not yet decided if you can be a member. You question why you started the whole thing and whether you should continue. There is definitely lots of doubt. I call it Doctoral-PMT except everyone experiences it at different times and to different levels of intensity – even the males! But it is that feeling you get when experiencing bad PMT when you feel depressed, where you question and doubt everything and just feel overwhelmed. Like normal PMT, Doctoral PMT does pass, you just have to ride it out.
– I also didn’t realise how much work it would be or the level of complexity involved. I came in incredibly overconfident, based on completing 5 prior degrees with really little effort or difficulty, I expected the PhD to be the same. Ha! It is SOOOO much work, had I realised how much I doubt I would have taken it on. And it is not easy, you actually have to think! And original thoughts!
– I also was interested in how differently people approach the whole thing. The first year there is so much uncertainty. It takes ages to get clarity around your topic, you start off with no idea how you will research the topic, and there is no road map to start with for the coming years. This did not bother some people at all, they reveled in it – it is a “journey”, just enjoy the ride. Others like me, hated the lack of control and the feeling of not knowing the big picture or being able to see the path to the end clearly. I wonder if the first group are the types of people who like rollercoasters and the second are like me who hate them.
– It is also interesting the different reasons people do a PhD. I am not really sure why I am doing it – I always for as long as I was aware of PhDs I wanted to do one PhD someday. I have no desire to be an academic, although it will give me more credibility in my field, but in the end I guess I started it just cause it seemed like the natural progression in my studies, but now I am continuing it as I want the challenge of learning how to do rigorous research and because I do want to find out (or at least explore!) the answers to my research questions.
– When the paperwork first came and I found we had to attend 12 formal days as part of the first year program I was annoyed. What a drag! Just let me get on with it. Now I realise how lucky we were to have this first year program – particularly compared to people in other institutions. It is so important to have that support in the first year, to have people who are thinking experiencing the same thing as you, to not feel alone, to feel part of a community, to have people to share resources with or just whinge to about the whole thing! Some people chose not to take advantage of this aspect and I really feel they were doing themselves a disservice trying to go it alone. I am usually someone who is totally happy to work alone and would not feel I needed support such as this, but I can’t emphasise enough what a huge difference it made. The program itself was excellent, but having the opportunity to discuss your topic and hear what others were thinking and doing was invaluable. Plus having deadlines to reach certain stages was really important.
– Sometimes the academic community does feel alien and strange. When I first heard we had to do a poster presentation I thought it was a joke. What are we, Year 7 students? But it was a really interesting experience in a world I have not had much to do with. Same with attending the conference. Was really interesting but man some people seriously need to work on their presentation skills!
– It was also interesting to hear what a low completion rate and high drop out rate there is in the program. There is no way I would not finish this having done so much work already. It would be such a waste! But people go for 6 years and then never finish it, How can they bear that????
My biggest challenges were:
– My strength and what I do in my job is take a mass of information and distill it down into practical components that are easily understood and applied. So I distill things to their essence and I make them as simple as possible. I have to think opposite to this for the PhD – I have to learn to revel in the detail, revel in the meanderings and complexities, focus on theorising and knowledge for the sake of knowledge – not for the goal of practical outcomes. This is definitely a challenge for me. I am going to deal with this in part by also writing simultaneously a practical outcome document, when I read journal articles I can’t help thinking now how could this be applied in the real world and I want to record my ideas and thoughts. That way I will feel more comfortable being theoretical in the PhD.
– This links to the second challenge, writing in an academic way. This does not come naturally to me, I am of the school of thought that says why use a complex word if a simpler one says the same thing, why waffle it you can say it in a simpler way. So another area to work on. The way I tend to work is write all of my ideas and thoughts in plain language, then translate the whole thing into academic double-speak!
– Methodology. What a pain. Trying to get my head about epistemologies (see, why don’t they just say your view of the world), methodologies, approaches etc. The whole area has just been a challenge and I am still getting my head around it. All you can do is read and read on the area till you start to get some clarity.
– Literature review. Wow, who would have thought I could read 300 journal articles and 50 books and still feel like I have just touched the surface. I did say it was a lot of work didn’t I! The literature review also brought back to me something I don’t like about academia (mentioned earlier) which is the lack of practical applications. Here is all this research about self-regulated learning over the last 30 years but how much of it has filtered into our schools? Very little I suspect. I’d never heard of any of it while I was teacher that’s for sure. I don’t like ivory towers. And actually a lot of it is very much models and theories that have not been developed to the next stage – practical outcomes.
One more lesson in the course at Taronga left and 5 practical days to go.
Some interesting stories from the wildlife hospital:
– They got a whole heap of green tree frogs in one time. The reptile guys said they would be all fine in together. In the morning there was only one snake there – but you could see the outline of the other snakes inside it – it had eaten all the rest!
– Echidnas have a weird looking four headed penis. Google a pic it is freaky. They take photos of them at the hospital and add them to the penis file, ie pics of what is normal etc. When anyone sees one for the first time they all scream.
– Apparently many of the snakes they get from the police that have been confiscated (as illegal etc) are from bikies. Quite common for bikies to have big tanks with snakes in them and drugs hidden inside the tank – who is going to put their hand in there to get them!
– One of the most common problems with treating birds is that they get bumblefoot. If they are on a surface that is different from what they are normally used to they get these infectious sores on their feet.
– Once there was an oil spill and they trucked hundred of birds down to the wildlife hospital only to find when the truck arrived that they packed the crates too tightly and all the birds died of suffocation.
Our poor cats had fun the other day, after that dust storm one of the cats had a runny eye, we took them to the vet who stuck them both under the tap and shampooed and washed them. They were not amused. With all the dust and soil and pesticides in the dust the vet said it was a good idea to wash then rather than have them overload their system trying to clean themselves. Poor things looked like drowned rats!