My PhD Journey So Far
I’m sure each individual has a reason to pursue a PhD program anywhere in the world. Like any other PhD student, I indeed had my reasons, which I found credible and worth justifying. Now, after finding a program to study and a research topic, I have found myself within an institution of higher learning in Central Europe. As much as I have found this to be important for my self-development, career growth, and development, I find myself at a crossroads, and the journey now seems clouded with fog.
Tarvid (2014) articulates that there is basically limited research by scholars on the motivation and drive behind students pursuing doctoral studies. Tarvid further outlines that a study in the UK on why students pursue PhD programs found that 55% of respondents were more driven by personal development and intrinsic interest. I find myself falling within this 55% range, however, I am now critically examining if my quest for personal development outweighs the challenges that are entrenched in the PhD journey. I always wonder if I am the odd one out who really stresses about it, and it's still a long time before I find the answers.
Firstly, the mental process of overthinking about how long the journey will be has been exhausting. After acquiring an undergraduate degree and a master’s degree, I am always inundated by internal voices that question me about whether it is really necessary to keep pursuing more academic qualifications. The world of academia is often uncertain and filled with potential vulnerability (Watts, 2009). In my world, such critique has been emboldened by social media discourse on Twitter, where PhD stories are shared about how academic achievement may mean ‘nothing’ in the corporate world in terms of remuneration. At the end of the day, the same question still lingers in my mind, ‘is it worth it?’. Probably everyone who has a PhD will have a different answer.
Secondly, as a foreigner experiencing a new environment in a country where English is not the first language, my integration into the university and society has been slow. Since culture and language are interrelated (Jiang, 2000), without understanding and speaking the local language, it is difficult to facilitate social interactions and learn how to behave and interact with locals. This has negatively impacted the development of my relationships with departmental team members and other PhD students. Worse off, having grown up in a collective society back home in Africa, the individualistic European world can be so brutal with its emphasis on solitude and personal preservation. Unfortunately, this status quo plays out without direct institutional knowledge or interventions, and it distorts learner experience and institutional intent. Moreover, the status quo develops with a burden of expected adaptation on the shoulders of the victim of circumstances.
With all these experiences and thoughts, my mind wanders and finds itself motionless at the intersection of a potential meaningless pursuit of self-growth and a possible triumph of self-actualization. As time passes, I wait for that moment when the journey will become clearer and probably pay dividends.
Sources
Jiang, W., 2000. The relationship between culture and language. ELT journal, 54(4), pp.328–334.
Tarvid, A., 2014. Motivation to study for PhD degree: Case of Latvia. Procedia Economics and Finance, 14, pp.585–594.
Watts, J.H., 2009. From professional to PhD student: Challenges of status transition. Teaching in Higher Education, 14(6), pp.687–691.
