Start of the PhD

Jennie Dziegiel did an MA in Religious Studies at Lancaster University, and is now a first year PhD researcher in the Department of Theology and Religion at Durham University. Her PhD looks at how working in healthcare shapes people’s spiritual and religious world views, and is funded by the AHRC Northern Bridge Doctoral Training Partnership. 

As I sit and write this, I’ve been a PhD candidate in Theology and Religion at Durham University for five whole weeks. So obviously I now know everything there is to know about PhD life, and I’m ready to impart my wisdom to the waiting world.

Not.

But I do have some thoughts about what it’s like to be in the very first stages of something as huge and strange as a PhD. Here are five thoughts for my first five weeks. Maybe they’ll help other newbies realise they aren’t alone. Or maybe it’s just an exercise in catharsis for me, broadcast on the internet. Only one way to find out…

1) The whole thing is a bit surreal

The last five weeks have been a bit weird. I’ve been confident and insecure, delighted and grumpy, challenged and listless, productive and pants, over-stimulated and under-stimulated, over-caffeinated and under-caffeinated, excited and terrified. Usually within about an hour (particularly re caffeine). Some of the surrealism comes down to the fact that I’m back in Durham where I did my undergrad, and I keep looking round and wondering where my flatmates have gone and panicking that I’m late for lectures that I no longer have. But a lot of it comes down to the newness. I suppose new things are always a combination of the brilliant and the baffling. I’m told a lot of the first year is like this, so I’m buckling up.

2) I am not an impostor – but boy do I feel like one

Impostor syndrome is real. However many times I remember that I’ve worked hard to get here, that I’ve got a physical MA certificate in my living room, and that a circle of faceless academics has decided I’m capable of doing a PhD, I still spend a lot of time silently worrying that everyone has made a mistake, and that sometime soon it’s going to become glaringly obvious that I know absolutely nothing about religion or social science or theology or writing or thinking and someone will have to gently show me the door. “Everyone feels like this,” they tell me. “But, no, really, I actually don’t have a clue,” I reply. Fortunately I have a fiancé and a family that regularly remind me I’m being silly. But it’s still tough at times.

A lot of impostor syndrome comes down to that ever-present temptation to compare ourselves to others. If you see yourself falling into that trap, heed the wisdom that a fellow first-year-PhD handed me in my college bar: we’re all contributing to knowledge, and we’re all doing it in very different ways. If you’re project’s unique – and it has to be to be a PhD – then the process is going to be unique too. More than at any other academic stage up to this point, I now have the freedom not to compare myself to others. I’m going to try very hard not to.

3) Everyone seems to feel the same

Everyone I’ve spoken to has reassured me that feeling a bit lost or confused or overwhelmed at the start of a PhD is completely normal. It makes handling impostor syndrome much easier. If I have one tip from my first five weeks in this strange business, it would be to admit to other people that starting a PhD is a bit weird. That way we might gradually puncture the myth that everyone else knows what’s going on and we’re the only one who doesn’t, and we might gradually weaken the hold impostor syndrome seems to have on academia. Or something like that. On a more personal level I’ve just found it cathartic to be honest about how I’m feeling. 

4) A work-life balance is important, but tricky

My sense is that it’s going to be very easy for a lot of my life and my identity to become bound-up with my work. Every time I have to explain my research to someone and they don’t react with a requisite level of enthusiasm, a little bit of my soul lets out sad tears of panic. Which is absurd. Yes, I’m going to be spending a lot of time on my PhD. But is it my whole identity? No way. And a work-life balance is key to ramming that home when I’m getting tied up in delusions of either grandeur or inadequacy. Plus, we all know that a good work-life balance helps our productivity, our physical and mental health, our relationships, and a whole bunch of other things besides.

I definitely haven’t nailed this yet. I’ve been really grateful for circles of old friends and for circles of new friends. I’m planning my wedding and it’s the most wonderful distraction I’ve ever had. I’ve subjected my sister to some very creative cooking, most of which has been edible. I’m back playing with my worship band and they make me laugh and feel at peace. But it’s also been tempting and easy to stay in my office for half an hour too long, to eat lunch at my desk, to forget to go outside during daylight, and to let my time off become additional PhD-worry-time. This work-life balance lark is tricky, but I’m glad I’ve realised that early on.

(If you want to sample my creative cooking, I’ll gladly welcome you to Chateau Jennie for some constructive down-time).

5) It’s pretty brilliant.

I worked seriously hard to get to this point. The combination of PhD and funding applications and MA took a lot out of me, and put a lot of strain on my tear-ducts. I legitimately developed my first wrinkles and frankly I’m amazed I didn’t start going grey. So it’s been wonderful, amid the confusion and newness and work and supervisions and conversations, to realise, just occasionally, that I am literally living my dream. And it’s a dream with lots of perks. I love being in control of my time and my work. I love having the mental space to explore something I’m passionate about and believe could genuinely change the world, if only very slightly. I love having a tiny little desk in an office a stone’s-throw away from Durham Cathedral, where I can talk to people who get what I’m going through, and which means that my house feels like a home, not an extended study. Doing a PhD is a privilege in so many ways, and I suspect I’ll do well to remember that on the days when I feel a bit lost.

I had lunch with a friend a couple of days ago. She’s a very wise lady, and embarking on year two of her PhD. She told me that doing a PhD is like running a business. It’s yours and you’re in control. But that comes with its stresses and challenges. There will be days when you love it, and days when you loathe it and need to escape. And that’s OK.