It has been a week since I submitted my thesis, and honestly it still feels surreal. Submitting a thesis is something that you envision since the very first day of your PhD, and the journey from that very first day until submission is long, hard, exhausting, and stressful. But also unique, interesting, and inspiring.
The last few months have been particularly busy and hard. The week leading up to the submission was one of the busiest working weeks I’ve ever had. I was working away for my market research job running engagement workshops for a local government- we ran seven workshops in two days and I still had to stay on top of other projects. I also had marking and zoom sessions for my online tutoring. In between this I was finishing a thesis. So it was a week of 14 hour working days (I am still catching up on sleep).
These last few weeks have been a rollercoaster of exhausting, excitement, frustration, and not knowing if I would achieve the 15th of November deadline. But I did achieve it! At about 5pm on Friday I clicked that submit button and then drank champagne straight out the bottle!
When I was a fresh faced PhD student I envisioned that the elation felt when submitting a PhD thesis would be like nothing else. I have since met many people through this blog who say that when they submitted their PhD, all they felt was relief. I think I was somewhere in between.
I am so proud of myself for sticking with my PhD and submitting it! The PhD journey is not over with a Viva to be done in January/February. But for now my shoulders are much less tense, I can watch my lame TV shows guilt free, and I can start looking after my body and mind more!
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Awesome!, Just started my 3rd year of 4. Can’t wait to finish!