The end of the road.

I am sitting on a medicine ball in my office at the Department of Product and Systems Design Engineering. The end of August, and as such the summer vacations, is nearing. I turned thirty two days ago and I am waiting for the bureaucracy to announce the date of my PhD thesis defense (more like a presentation under the Greek educational system.) This is a good opportunity to put some thoughts about the whole process in written form and share them. Let me, and the whole wide world know about your experiences in this life choice that is the academia.
Coming to the end is a weird experience. I don’t feel full of accomplishment or pride. I don’t feel wise or smarter. I don’t think putting the Doctor title in front of my name will do something for me. I feel numb, as if the very process I am emerging from forced me to stop feeling striping away all complexity of humanity and only allowed the productive academic parts to flourish. As if I have been less than half a person for these past five years. Blood is rushing back to ‘limbs’ I forgot I posses and it is weird. In addition I feel like I simply proved to myself that I know next to nothing and probably die without any answers but I feel at peace with that.
I often joke that there are so many things in academia that people should tell you beforehand but never do. It is part of the process to uncover them through anxiety, stress and failure. It is the process of designing and building a cage for yourself and busting yourself out of it at the same time . Once you have conquered these mountains, or molehills, you can see that the people around you know but nobody told you. You get to understand the eccentricities of academics while becoming one. Kind of like when your ex has found new love but no one wants to be the bearer of bad news. So I will not try to spoil the experience no deep helpful life pro tips here…
I will say this however, no matter what you think about yourself and your strength of will or will to power “YOU ARE NOT PREPARED!” In watchmen the biggest challenge that the godlike Dr. Manhattan (a colleague by the way) has to face is to put himself back together. The process of research has been one of exploding and putting oneself back together again. It has been a process that will challenge you in unforeseen ways emotionally, cognitively, academically, personally, pretty much in every aspect of you being.

In addition to the internal struggles you have to know that you are chasing the will o’ the wisps, striving for the unattainable. That is the very nature of research. Uncertainty management is a quintessential superpower as a handful of people get to the, proverbial, port they set out to get to. Most of us navigate uncharted waters trying to stay on top of a galloping maverick that is the evolution of your field. Yes! a maverick galloping in uncharted waters! it sounds absurdist but that’s something you have to get used to. If it was normal it wouldn’t be worthy of looking into.
Becoming an elitist that gets bored when interacting with ‘normies’ is a slippery slope and should be avoided at all costs. You are no better than anyone else so be humble. Relish in the opportunity to explain the problems you are facing to people other than your peers for they will provide a different, sometimes misinformed perspective that is necessary to be critical. Don’t treat yourself as a brain on a stick take care of your body and your mind, physical exercise and menial tasks can be Zen practices that provide room to your subconscious to inform your research. Try to find your center. The thought that your ‘superior intellect’ is being oppressed by society or bodily functions is rooted in delusions of grandeur comparable to those of the Pharoh.
I remember panicking during the first years when someone outside academia asked “what are you doing in your PhD” mainly because i had no clue. I knew the direction of my research, or which fields I am looking into but what is my contribution? I remember the Aha! moment when I saw what I was doing with crystal clarity and knew that all I have to do is connecting to everything else and describe it. Doing so is not easy but it is easier than what preceded this. The how borders on the metaphysical tradition of elevating the subconscious and letting it speak its piece. Like Kekulé taught us in this academic tradition sometimes you know the answer but you are not aware of your knowledge.

So you have this mind altering process that challenges you daily in ways that you cannot expect, making you less of a person, eroding your social life and skills and demanding so much every day. A process that statistically causes mental problems to the majority of candidates. It does not sound like a good sell so far so why even bother? One is the holy grail of knowledge and self-actualization, fragmenting your being might be painful but it provides the chance to put it back together in a more desirable way (this was a subtle hint to Herb Simon, i don’t know what devil pushed me to it.) One reason behind this is that the whole thing is deeply personal. You might have a supervisor or a committee or be surrounded by a network of friends and coworkers but, in my experience, you are alone, truly, deeply alone, just you and your thesis. It rings an adolescent tone in the fact “that nobody gets it” and “it is not just a phase”
Additionally, my PhD experience was life changing because it forced me to push my limits and re-contextualize what is possible for a person can achieve. Setting out for a seemingly unattainable goal and coming back injured but breathing is fucking exhilarating, I hereby move we consider research an extreme sport! Of course this is not the rule, be prepared to be rejected more than a guy with terrible breath and acme hitting on women in a well lit upscale bar. Celebrate failure and learn from it, integrate the comments of Reviewer 2. in your work and thank him for taking the time to trash your work.
All in all it has been an amazing five years and given the chance i would change next to nothing. Becoming an autonomous, strong individual within a community of peers and friends hurts but it is worth it in the long run. I would like to thank all of people who supported me in any way during this arduous process in many different tangible and intangible ways. I love you all and can only hope to repay your kindness in kind.
I tried not to lift the veil of mystery around the whole process just a peek under it. All my comments are based on my own experience alone and might not apply. If you are considering taking this long strange journey or you have set out on it but feel lost feel free to contact me at bofy (at) aegean.gr, I would love to help in any way possible.
