On starting my PhD

Well, this is it: I'm finally doing a PhD.  I've always wanted to do one, and have thought about starting several times, but I've always been short of either time, or money, or both.  Now I'm finally here.  It's a very exciting time - I have found myself walking around campus grinning from ear to ear for no reason other than - here I am!  And yet, at the same time, it's also terrifying.  

I've been to the induction talks, and I know that for the next three years I'm expected to work constantly, and to build my knowledge up so that in three years' time, I'm an 'expert' in my field.  My work will constantly be under scrutiny and 'evaluated' (criticised?) by everyone I work with and for.  I must be ready to ditch topics close to my heart, or passages I've spent time and effort labouring over, without a second glance. I must produce an original piece of work, which needs to be distinct from the output of my peers (and my professors) and yet is achievable in three years and three months - the pressure to complete within the set time frame is on, already, and I haven't even started yet! 

Also, I'm a mature student.  At 41, I'm twenty years behind some of my peers.  I'm relieved to say, this isn't unusual among my colleagues, but in terms of building a career post-doc, I will be competing for jobs up against people who are 25.  This is more of an issue now, in the current economic climate, as academic jobs have become so scarce that lecturing staff on temporary contracts are applying for Research Assistant posts (which would usually go to someone finishing their PhD).  In three years time, I hope that the situation will have changed slightly, but this is a gamble.  Suffice it to say, I'll be hoping to get a job at the end of my three years, rather than hoping for an academic job.  

So, why start a blog?  Well, a PhD is a transformative process.  I start off as a tabula rasa (blank slate), and am expected to become an expert in my field.  I may have two postgraduate degrees under my belt, but at this stage, that is just evidence that I can work at this level, am a reflexive scholar, and open to learning.  I have changed fields for my PhD; so I'm not expected to have a full background in my new field yet, but to have the potential to be a learning machine.  For the next year, I am to absorb new ideas and theories; study different methodologies and research techniques; get to grips with a variety of new technologies and approaches; and to be able to (after long entrenched study) accept that something new has come along, and a section of my work is now irrelevant.  It requires intense self-discipline, concentration, and flexibility.  In year two, I take the frameworks I have developed, and go out into the field to gather data, testing my theories, throwing them out if needed, and developing new ones.  Finally, I write up two/three years of work, and have to defend every decision I've made against an external 'expert' in my field.  I expect the process itself will challenge me at every stage, and that in three years time I will be a very different person.  

In addition, taking a PhD at this point in my life will turn my life upside down.  To relocate as a student is tough.  As a mature student, to leave my settled, cosy home for several days each week, to live in a different city away from family and friends, immersing myself in new social environments, is going to present its own challenges.  Just thinking about this makes me shiver.  While I (feel I) have reasonably good people skills, I've chosen to research with young people.  I expect that my people skills are going to be tested to the limit, and I'm going to have to learn not only to swim but to thrive in these new waters, in order to collect my data. 

As a student, I'm expected to be reflexive; to examine my own feelings and thoughts through this process.  A blog seemed to be a useful way to evaluate my progress through these three years and, incidentally, to create a record of my development.  Some of the most interesting academic accounts I've read have been personal records of challenges in fieldwork or professional practice environments.  These have raised far more questions for me than just reading dry academic tomes on the same issues, and forced me to confront ethical challenges or technical points and really engage with them.  In this electronic world, it also seemed to me that other people (students or future students) might be interested in the process, and join in with their own experiences and thoughts.  If no-one reads it? Well; I'll have spent three years working on improving my writing skills (which is a Research Council target by itself).  Please feel free to comment, engage with issues I'm struggling with, and bring your own 'challenges'.  I will try to submit at least one blog entry per week, to keep some kind of overview on the process.