Revelations of a Ph.D. Scholar

I have been gazing at my laptop for days (Before going to Port Blair and now after coming back), waiting for words to miraculously appear on the screen in front of me. I have been staring at it as if any minute now, a little leprechaun (Fairy in Irish folklore) is going to jump out, start dancing on my keyboard, and create the most brilliant chapter of my thesis ever. But alas! The page in front of me is still blank. As always, I‘ve had months to write this and yet I’m still pushing the deadline. And, as always, I’m frustrated with myself for letting it get to this point.

So why am I telling you this? Well, I guess you could say that it signifies a bit of what my life in academia is like sometimes. Before I became a PhD student, when I was pursuing my Masters from Panjab University, Chandigarh, I considered myself to be a reasonably bright, lucrative, punctual and disciplined person. I was the kind of person who knew how to manage her time efficiently and effectively and I was excited and fortunate about getting the chance right after my Masters (Show off!) to do research for a living. But a few years into my PhD, I’m now suffering from Sartre’s existentialism. And I think it is time to confess about it:

# #Writing my PhD bores me sometimes. And with ‘bore’, I mean: I want to throw my computer out the window and set it on fire. Trust me!! I have days where working on my PhD gets me so incredibly frustrated. These moments happen especially when I get back the second round of reviews on a paper, and realize I have to once again rewrite that same piece of text that I have been writing, rewriting, scrapping, and fine-tuning for over months now. I mean, this stuff gets old, man. Literally. I feel like a cow that’s been chewing on the same piece of grass for so long .I just miss those days where I could hand in my work, be done with it and move on to something else.

# #I must seriously be the laziest PhD student ever. Most days, I go home not really knowing what it is that I actually achieved that day. In fact, most days I’m pretty confident that I didn’t really achieve much at all and that my PhD is not one bit closer to actually getting finished. What on earth have I been up to in those two years?! I see other PhDs writing and writing and writing and I just don’t get it. How do they do that? How do they work at home without being tempted to sleep and eat and watch movies?

# #I’m convinced that I’m just too dumb for this line of work. More often than I’d like to admit, when I go to conferences and people explain their research to me, I have absolutely no clue what they are talking about. Most of that just makes my brain hurt.

Now there are some people that believe that I am good at this whole academic thing. But let me tell you something: That’s just what these people want to believe about me. I’ve really just been lucky so far. I’ve been getting a lot of opportunities and good help during my PhD, and that’s why I am where I am now. Doing a PhD is a struggle for me and there are days that I just don’t think I’m cut out for it. I’m just a good talker and the people that matter in my academic career seem to like me. Or maybe they just take pity on me.

##I watch F.R.I.E.N.D.S. And I like it. I really do. I don’t go home after a day’s work and read more books. I just keep watching it and Oh, Grey’s Anatomy, Gossip Girl, How I Met Your Mother and all that other stuff. I’m an American TV-series addict. Because watching these kinds of TV-series is the most unintelligent, brainless thing I can think of after a long day of working on my PhD and that’s why I absolutely love it. It’s like the off-switch to my PhD. The only bad thing about it is that I always feel guilty afterwards. After all, I could have used that time to read that book that’s been lying on my desk for months or finish that chapter that’s been gathering virtual dust on my computer.

##Knowing what I know now, I would never, ever have done a PhD. Now don’t get me wrong, I’m not saying that I regret doing a PhD. I’m actually really glad that I’m and proud to see how far I have come –even if that never seems to be as far as my schedule tells me I should be by now. I just think sometimes to run away and work at McDonalds serving Mc Veggie. And to be honest, on some days, that still sounds like a pretty good alternative. Because what rational person would ever chose a job that puts you on such an emotional rollercoaster ride with such intense moments of self-perpetuated insecurity and frustration? A job where in some weeks your best achievement is actually the deletion of a paragraph in your chapter? So, yeah, I guess it’s a good thing that I didn’t really understand the whole PhD process before I started.

There are some “annoying” moments which you (especially girls) will definitely face while doing your Ph.D. (I have faced all of them).That awkward moment when you are asked the dreaded question in a very casual conversation, “So what do you plan to do after the PhD?” When someone looks you over, clutching 5 heavy-duty books, and says, “You should be done by now – when are you graduating?” When a distant “aunty” (no blood ties) says to you over the phone, “You are almost done…Omg!! You are crossing the age (As if I didn’t know)…You should get married.” When people comment: “So, you are not a real doctor, doctor??(I feel like punching them) And the funniest of all, you are talking to your computer and your father observes you silently from the back of the room, then gently asks “should I call the doctor?” (This actually happened with me).

##Still, reality is that I did choose to do a PhD and now that I am, there is one thing that helps me get my spirits up and keeps me on track –even on my worst days. And that is: I fantasize about my “convocation ceremony”. Even though it is completely inappropriate to already be thinking about it at this stage, it’s sort of fun and strangely motivating to let my thoughts run wild on this while I ride my bike to work. I fantasize about the party, the dinner. About the location and my outfit. But what I probably fantasize about most is the song that I want to have played as I walk back from the stage to the reception room, right after I’ve officially received my PhD. Obviously, it will have to be something appropriate and fitting for the occasion. But in my ceremony-fantasy, I’m thinking of something, well…a little different. To make my academic statement to the world I’m thinking more along the lines of something incredibly cheesy like R. Kelly’s “I Believe I Can Fly, I believe I can touch the sky
I think about it every night and day, Spread my wings and fly away.” Trust me, just about every song I hear is currently being screened for possible-PhD-ceremony-closing-suitability.

So there you have it. Six things that I felt I needed to confess. Now secretly, I hope I’m not the only weirdo out here who’s struggling with her PhD and all that comes with it. But maybe it is just me. I’m probably just that outlier who feels a bit out of place sometimes and doesn’t really know if all of this is meant for her.

##Either way, there’s one last confession that I have to make. In spite of all the insecurities and the worries and the guilt that I have sometimes, I actually kind of love this job. Because the truth is, most days l have a lot of fun hanging out with my colleagues and scholars, coming up with new ideas, and preparing my lectures. And let’s be honest: what other job lets you stay home to work on the couch in your pajamas when you don’t feel like going out? Or lets you read books all day in the name of ‘work’? Where do you get to have the most unproductive moments and still have everyone say “oh, don’t worry about it, it is all part of the process”? And what other job lets you spend all day chatting with people and even fly across the world for the sole purpose of generating ideas, socializing and building your network? Let’s face it: Doing a PhD may have some downsides but it sure has its perks too!!