Pandemic Insights on Scholarly Uncertainty
The ongoing pandemic has affected a large number of research scholars. Many sites and possibilities of data collection have closed down due to the new normal which is the lockdown. Field sites, laboratories, libraries and universities have become inaccessible. Thousands have not received fellowship in months. Many haven’t been able to go home to their loved ones, are probably broke and stranded and trying to write their dissertations regardless. But most PhD scholars you know will look unfazed. Here’s a personal account of why its so….
In the autumn of 2015 I embarked upon a journey that’s yet to see fruition. My inexperience at the age of 23 was probably one of the key factors which led me to the decision that enrolling in a PhD programme is the best next step after grad school. Honestly, I did not even know how or why I got selected in the first place. I had no experience of the world, let alone research. I wasn’t even aware that people can reach out to professors who they would want to work under for their doctoral dissertation.
Fresh out of elementary grad school, oblivious of undercurrents, quicksand and hungry sharks, I stood on the shore of academia, not even knowing what to expect other than a PhD degree. The uncertainty of where it would lead did not bother me much because I had not even touched its surface yet. To me, I was doing a PhD because I hadn’t managed to get a job after grad school and I thought that PhD might lead me to a comfortable university job. I was as naive as I could be.
The last four and a half years, all I have learnt is survival. Survival on less money, little sleep, basic food and clothing. Not receiving fellowship for months on an end is normal. Technical snags or clerical errors delaying it further, or threatening to stop your low-ish income is very real. I must add that I know scholars who have it worse than I do because they have children or old and ailing parents to look after. PhD programmes teach you survival in prolonged isolation, away from friends and family. You spend all your time in a lab, a field, or a library. You don’t meet fellow scholars for months because they are doing the same. You have no time for anyone but your work because you’re on your own. Even your work is uncertain. You are often individually trying to find something new and credible in a field where large experienced research teams with humongous funding are publishing new findings in the most elite and inaccessible journals everyday. You may be accountable to your supervisor but to the larger extent, you’re mainly accountable to your own self. If the dissertation gets delayed, no one will take the fall with you, let alone for you. Further, you’re not sure if you should behave like a student or an associate at your department, given that you attend classes and you also teach classes. Your superiors are not your friends because they know more, your juniors don’t want to be your friends because you might end up being their teacher in some semester. Your own position is ridden with internal uncertainties. A PhD programme, as it advances, feels less and less like a voyage, and increasingly like digging a tunnel everyday, completely alone, looking for something other than the usual mud, often with the most primitive tools or your bare hands. It’s self motivated. In my field, working hours don’t apply. I could be working when the whole world is going on long weekend trips. Self-managed work can be as stressful as having tight deadlines imposed by a boss at work. The uncertainty — the top-heavy system in most universities around the world, goose chase for just one breakthrough and rat race for at least one decent publication to get you noticed a little by the bigger fish — it all compounds, and it all alienates. Often, the alienation hardens us up enough to start treating other research scholars or grad school students in the same cold and isolated way the system treated us.
Several semesters of cope-breakdown-repeat later, I believe that I have learnt to get by in this system. I take one day at a time. I have become more patient and organised. I have embraced the fact that I might be the captain of my boat, but there are other boats treading the same water, even when I can’t see them. I count smaller wins. I have also learnt to keep loved ones close because uncertainty does not have to be necessarily lonesome, and it gets overwhelming no matter how sound one’s mental health is. Early career academics, especially PhD scholars, mainly need to feel like they belong. I have learnt that instead of stressful networking, friendships with peers formed over research forums, student magazines and conferences can go a long way in helping a scholar survive. PhD programme has a human side, and a shared sense of community across disciplines is all the more requisite now. In addition to survival, I have learnt that it does not necessarily have to be this way. If nothing, there are always PhD memes!
