A few weeks ago, I set up a question poll on Instagram and asked people to state their assumptions about me and/or my PhD journey….
“Your PhD journey feels like a duck on a pond. Calm to the eye, frantic below the surface”
This is 100% true. I know that the person who wrote this also has a PhD, so they have some personal experience. Although occasionally during my PhD experience my stress was clearly visible, for the most part it probably looked as though I was calm. When in truth my little legs were paddling so fast below the surface”
“It was difficult” and “It was easy”
I had the complete opposite assumptions! I don’t think that any PhDs are easy. They are each incredibly difficult in their own way. For me, I analysed over 40,000 comments by hand. I had to change the plans for one of my studies. I had a verrrrry tedious drafting process. And I had terrible personal circumstances occur. So I wouldn’t say it was easy.
“That you live in Sydney”
Haha, no! I do live in Australia, but I live in little underrated Adelaide.
“Organisation skills are 100%”
Yes, I would say this is definitely true! I am very organised and I think this helped me get my PhD finished. It also helps me in my current role as an Online Lecturer.
“That you are in your 30s”
Also no… I am almost 27 !
“You regret your PhD”
Ahhh, this is an interesting one. There were times during the PhD process that I regretted it, like I genuinely regretted it. But, not now. I love my job which wouldn’t be possible without my PhD.
“Your PhD was in health sciences”
It was actually in Psychology- but with a focus on Conservation Psychology. I am going to share more about my thesis in a future blog post.
I had a lot of fun with this blog post and will hopefully do another assumptions post in the future !
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