When you start out doing a PhD everyone tells you it will be one of the most difficult things you've ever done. Your motivation will fluctuate and there will be times when it will be a constant struggle to keep working towards the finish line. You're told that you will be sick of the sight of your data, your supervisor and your writing and you will slowly lose your soul, becoming disillusioned with the whole thing after having nothing else but your thesis to focus on for three solid years.
At the very beginning of a PhD it's difficult to comprehend these sentiments and near impossible to believe that this is how things are going to turn out for you because the longest project you're likely to have worked on will have been a only been few a months long. The end was always in sight with these projects and you always had other deadlines, lectures and exams to divide your time between. There really is no way to know how soul destroying a thesis can be until you're half way through and by that point it's too late to turn back and choose not to start it in the first place.
Since coming back from the conference (where I had two lovely weeks off) I have spent a week jet-lagged and a week unwell. That's another two weeks where I didn't really get much PhD work done other than firing off some e-mails and submitting an ethics form for my last study (yes, LAST...eek). It's now Monday afternoon of week three and I just couldn't get myself out of bed and into the office this morning, despite my grand plans to be there first thing to finish my analysis and kick start the right up of another chapter. Granted I didn't sleep well last night but after resetting my alarm 5 times it was only 9am, there shouldn't have been anything stopping me from going in and getting on with my ever growing to-do list. Instead I sat and moped on the sofa drinking cup after cup of tea, watching back-to-back Scrubs and wondering why I didn't feel in any way guilty that I wasn't working on my thesis all hours of the day like I know I should be... I just don't know what to do with myself and I can't even muster up enough concern to snap myself out of it and get back to work. At the moment, I quite frankly couldn't care any less.
When I think about the amount of work that I still need to do it really is quite an overwhelming list. I can make an intellectual guess at how long it is all likely to take but rather than freaking out and realising that I should get a move on get on with it all it's almost like I'm completely detached from the whole thing. 'The Fear' has left the building leaving behind 'The Bemused' who, frankly, isn't that helpful in motivating me to start working at all, let alone flat out like I need to.
I'm not quite sure how to kick this little doom and gloom cloud that seems to be hovering over me. I'm hoping something will come and blow it away, and fast. I may feel like I want all this PhD malarky to be over, to be scroll hand with the initials after my name but I know that it's going to take a lot of time and a painful amount of effort to get there and it won't happen all by itself. My effort may have gone on an extended vacation but time is ticking on regardless and I know I'm just wasting the days I have left each time I give in to my indifference and press 'play' on the DVD.
So, I will join all the voices of previous scholars who started the quest to become a Dr, warning anyone thinking of doing the same that it WILL feel like it's never going to end, you WILL want to give up, and there WILL be days, weeks, months where you simply just don't care anymore. BUT part of me is still hopeful that I'll also be able to join the same voices in a couple of years time to be able to say that it's all worth it, you come through those difficult times and you pull it all together....
fingers crossed, eh?
Monday, 18 June 2012
Friday, 8 June 2012
The Joys and Sorrows of a Conference
One of the more glamorous aspects of academia is the opportunity to attend conferences and if you're very lucky, you'll be able to beg, plead and bargain your way into getting some funding to help you pay your way. A conference, particularly the international kind, is a great way to meet other researchers in your area, to keep up to date with the latest findings and to get some feedback on your own studies through a poster or oral presentation.
In the first year of my PhD I attended three conferences in the glitzy and tropical locations of Hull, Cambridge and Dundee. All three were interesting, provided great networking opportunities and sparked some interesting ideas for my own work, but fundamentally I didn't need my passport to get there. This was quite disappointing, but of course I'm not just doing this for the travel opportunities...
This year I hit the jackpot! The International Investigative Interviewing Research Group (iIIRG) held their annual conference a little further afield and before I knew it my flights were paid, the hotel was booked and my bags were packed. We were going to Toronto, Canada!
Although the chance to visit somewhere new is great, conferences can be a very lonely, especially when they are abroad. Most of the researchers already know each other and have forgotten how difficult it was for them to network when they were lowly PhD students. You never really know what to do during the refreshment and lunch breaks because everyone already seems to know everyone else and if you're not a particularly outgoing person it can be difficult to strike up conversations with strangers (in this case the answer was easy = sunbathe on the rooftop patio) . Thankfully my supervisor and one of the Post-Docs from our lab group were attending, and I'd met some fellow PhD students at the conference the year before, so I didn't feel like too much of a wall flower this time as I knew there would be a few friendly faces!
If you are lucky you may have the presentation fear to contend with. I was giving one of the presentations this year and it is something I dread with every fibre of my being! At the last conference my presentation had gone well, I'd got good feedback and questions and I felt I had done a good job. As an unknown name I had been put in a smaller venue last year and the room had been pretty packed which can be the only reason I can think of as to why they decided to put me in the main room this year...with a stage...and a podium...and a lot of anxiety. If you do get a paper accepted at a conference it really is something to be celebrated but it is a nerve wracking experience for someone who fears public speaking. I may have talked a little fast this year, lost my way a little and but I think I handled the questions at the end well and again, good comments and feedback so it wasn't a complete disaster. The best thing a PhD can do is get their research and their name out in the field and hope something good comes of it later when you're on the hunt for a job. Fingers crossed someone somewhere will remember me for the right reasons.
Aside fromt these slight negatives, there's so much you can take from attending a conference. There's the excitement of getting the programme and working out which presentations you're most interested in and having an internal battle with yourself when there's a timetabling clash - do you go with what you're most interested in hearing about or with what is potentially most useful for your PhD, it's a tough decision, one not always entirely weighted towards the PhD (oops!). This years conference had some inspiring presentations from both academics and professionals, something that iIIRG strives to achieve, and left me with a lot of quickly scribbled notes and a lot to think about.
Another exciting part of conferencing is that you never know who're you're going to meet. Over one lunch break I was sat with a lovely man who works in the business which is heading up the technological revolution in digital evidence gathering and storage and we had a lovely chat. You can imagine my surprise when later that day I found myself sipping ice win at the evening's social event with an FBI agent! I think I managed to play it cool ... just! You may just meet your future employer at the conference so it can be quite tiring trying to make a good impression to everyone - not a time to drink to much or sleep in.
Thankfully, I had a lot of funding to go with this exciting trip which meant I could save up my own hard earned cash and extend the trip into a HOLIDAY! My partner came along too and we took ourselves down to New York for a few days and had a few days back in Toronto before we flew home. It's a long way to go just for three days so why not take the chance to make the most of it I say!
It may be exhausting and daunting but there are so many positives to attending conferences as a PhD student that they by far outway the negatives.
Next stop on the conference bus? The Netherlands!!!!
Ciao for now
In the first year of my PhD I attended three conferences in the glitzy and tropical locations of Hull, Cambridge and Dundee. All three were interesting, provided great networking opportunities and sparked some interesting ideas for my own work, but fundamentally I didn't need my passport to get there. This was quite disappointing, but of course I'm not just doing this for the travel opportunities...
This year I hit the jackpot! The International Investigative Interviewing Research Group (iIIRG) held their annual conference a little further afield and before I knew it my flights were paid, the hotel was booked and my bags were packed. We were going to Toronto, Canada!
Although the chance to visit somewhere new is great, conferences can be a very lonely, especially when they are abroad. Most of the researchers already know each other and have forgotten how difficult it was for them to network when they were lowly PhD students. You never really know what to do during the refreshment and lunch breaks because everyone already seems to know everyone else and if you're not a particularly outgoing person it can be difficult to strike up conversations with strangers (in this case the answer was easy = sunbathe on the rooftop patio) . Thankfully my supervisor and one of the Post-Docs from our lab group were attending, and I'd met some fellow PhD students at the conference the year before, so I didn't feel like too much of a wall flower this time as I knew there would be a few friendly faces!
If you are lucky you may have the presentation fear to contend with. I was giving one of the presentations this year and it is something I dread with every fibre of my being! At the last conference my presentation had gone well, I'd got good feedback and questions and I felt I had done a good job. As an unknown name I had been put in a smaller venue last year and the room had been pretty packed which can be the only reason I can think of as to why they decided to put me in the main room this year...with a stage...and a podium...and a lot of anxiety. If you do get a paper accepted at a conference it really is something to be celebrated but it is a nerve wracking experience for someone who fears public speaking. I may have talked a little fast this year, lost my way a little and but I think I handled the questions at the end well and again, good comments and feedback so it wasn't a complete disaster. The best thing a PhD can do is get their research and their name out in the field and hope something good comes of it later when you're on the hunt for a job. Fingers crossed someone somewhere will remember me for the right reasons.
Aside fromt these slight negatives, there's so much you can take from attending a conference. There's the excitement of getting the programme and working out which presentations you're most interested in and having an internal battle with yourself when there's a timetabling clash - do you go with what you're most interested in hearing about or with what is potentially most useful for your PhD, it's a tough decision, one not always entirely weighted towards the PhD (oops!). This years conference had some inspiring presentations from both academics and professionals, something that iIIRG strives to achieve, and left me with a lot of quickly scribbled notes and a lot to think about.
Another exciting part of conferencing is that you never know who're you're going to meet. Over one lunch break I was sat with a lovely man who works in the business which is heading up the technological revolution in digital evidence gathering and storage and we had a lovely chat. You can imagine my surprise when later that day I found myself sipping ice win at the evening's social event with an FBI agent! I think I managed to play it cool ... just! You may just meet your future employer at the conference so it can be quite tiring trying to make a good impression to everyone - not a time to drink to much or sleep in.
Thankfully, I had a lot of funding to go with this exciting trip which meant I could save up my own hard earned cash and extend the trip into a HOLIDAY! My partner came along too and we took ourselves down to New York for a few days and had a few days back in Toronto before we flew home. It's a long way to go just for three days so why not take the chance to make the most of it I say!
It may be exhausting and daunting but there are so many positives to attending conferences as a PhD student that they by far outway the negatives.
Next stop on the conference bus? The Netherlands!!!!
Ciao for now
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