Categories: phd
Date: 18 November 2005 10:13:48
I'm still, despite the reassurances of chalky and others (including my supervisors), feeling like I really don't know what I'm doing with this Phd other than I should be doing lots more than I actually am. So yesterday evening's conversation with a couple of other PhD students in my department was really reassuring (not to mention hilarious).
One student is just writing up her thesis after more years than I care to think about, and has recently received her 1st draft back covered in red pen and requiring lots of rewriting, so she was understandably a bit fed up with the world. She was telling us that she'd chatted with her mum about it, and been really downhearted and all the rest of it, and her mum in all seriousness had basically said "never mind dear, you could always write articles for the People's Friend". It may yet be that that's what I'm reduced to as well.
The other is just into her second year and is starting to make preparations for her fieldwork. She was wondering to herself why she had thought a PhD was a good idea when she knew from school and from uni that she was hopelessly undisciplined (I've already felt loads better from seeing her studiously play Solitaire when I'd been worrying that I'd been spending too much time reading other peoples' blogs rather than doing any proper work), and then she said that her supervisors had asked her how she proposed to make contact with the type of people she wants to interview for her research. The answer to that, she told us, is basically "I don't know, whenever I think about it I feel sick and my eyelid starts twitching". We were on the floor laughing - already I have experienced that sinking feeling when I think about fieldwork, I'm sure we all feel like that, but at least it's not so much of an immediate issue for me yet. I think slowly I'm becoming convinced that every Phd social sciences student feels like this, and it's not that I'm rubbish. Of course, I suppose that could mean that we're all rubbish, but I think I prefer the term "creative genius". Yeah, that must be it. Don't rush me, man.
In other news, it's a bit brass monkeys up here. Brrrrrrr!