PhD life: Perception versus reality

This past week, since my viva, has been pretty taxing on the brain. I feel like I’ve been eating, breathing, and sleeping my PhD. I’ve taken time to process the feedback and try and come up with a plan going forward.

My assessors gave me some very good advice when it came to how to think about my project and communicate it with enough academic rigour to meet the requirements of a PhD—rather than being a Master’s project or a piece of development work. I feel like I’m rethinking my PhD for the millionth time… I don’t even know if that’s an exaggeration at this point. I’ve spent far too much time wondering whether PhD life is for me, am I cut out for it, and am I good enough? I have to push away those thoughts that I’m not good enough.

When I was an undergraduate student, I looked at the PhD demonstrators as people who had the answers to everything. They’d done one or two degrees and were pursuing something on their own, to discover new things. That meant they had to be super smart and know everything that had already been discovered about the area. They had all the answers.

As I went through my undergraduate degree and into my Master’s, getting to know some PhD students socially, I realised that yes, they were super smart but they were muddling through just the same as the rest of us. Somehow though, they seemed to be able to find solutions to things they didn’t know really quickly… they could still do everything.

I then applied for my own PhD and wondered whether PhD students actually had to be that smart because I’d managed to get one. I definitely didn’t know everything and I wasn’t sure if I’d be able to work out the answers to questions undergraduates posed to me.

When I started my PhD and got into it a bit, it seemed that everyone knew what they were doing… except me. Why was I there? Why had they picked me? Maybe I was the only one that applied and they were desperate? I don’t know. The people who really seemed clued in and on a roll were those who were coming up to/had done their 9-month assessments. So, maybe that’s what I needed… just some more time. I’d get through my 9-month assessment and then I’d feel better. I’d have a clear goal and be on track.

I’ve now done my 9-month assessment and feel like I’ve gotten backwards in my confidence. I thought I had a direction and knew what I was doing and then I did my viva and it was like my whole project came crashing down around me. It was not that bad. I just needed to refocus the lens of my PhD. It’s not that I haven’t learned anything, I have. I’ve made good progress; I just need to frame it right.

Moral of the story: Imposter syndrome sucks. Everyone is on their own journey and bluntly, the time and money wouldn’t be wasted on me if I wasn’t good enough to be there. This was their chance to kick me out and they didn’t. People might look on the outside like they are very well put together and confident, but under the surface and behind the scenes that’s not the case.

Shruti Turner (@ShrutiTurner) is a PhD Researcher at Imperial College London. This story was published on October 12, 2018, on Shruti’s blog, Shruti’s PhD (available here), and has been republished here with her permission.