After successfully sitting my PhD
viva exam last month, I did something which I’d been promising myself for a
long time. I sat down and I re-read all of my undergraduate essays and
dissertation. The period of time between starting my undergraduate degree in Anthropology at the University of East London in September 1994, and finishing
my PhD at Birkbeck College, University of London in September 2024 – I’m
somewhat stunned to realise – is exactly thirty years. But perhaps more
remarkable than that was the realisation, as I re-read those essays, that this
was probably the first time I’d done so since I’d finished writing them. And,
given the number of glaringly obvious typos and grammatical mistakes I now
found them to contain, I strongly doubt whether I’d even bothered to proof-read
them before I submitted them!
There were a couple of reasons why
I’d not re-read them before now. Well – firstly, life moves on. And, secondly,
at the time I was hugely dissatisfied with my first degree. Consequently, I
wasn’t overly proud of much of what I had written towards it. In retrospect,
from the very moment I’d finished my BSc., it felt like something I had survived
rather than something which I had accomplished. Nevertheless, I knew I wasn’t wholly finished
with academia just yet. I’d always intended to go back and do an MA degree,
but it took me a long time to think about and decide upon what sort of subject I
should choose to pursue next. I joked at the time that it took me fifteen ‘gap
years’ to decide. Originally, I’d wanted my first degree to be in Archaeology
and Anthropology, but force of circumstances had meant that my first degree had
ended up being a single honours in Anthropology (with as much archaeology as I
was allowed to cram in!). Those fifteen years, in which I worked full-time in a
museum, enabled me to figure out that I was perhaps more interested in and better
suited to becoming an historian rather than an archaeologist. However, archaeology and anthropology were
still very much part and parcel of my academic soul. These original interests of mine have certainly
continued to influence and inform everything I’ve since done academically, including my subsequent MA and PhD studies in History.
Consequently, it perhaps shouldn’t
be so surprising to find that there is quite a lot of continuity between the
things I wrote about and the trains of thought I pursued in my undergraduate
studies and my postgraduate interests even though the academic fields of
anthropology and history each appear to be quite distinct. Re-reading some of
those early essays it is amazing to me to find that I don’t remember the
subjects of several of those essays at all (!), but I do recall many of the
ideas I described and even certain sentences which I wrote within them verbatim.
I’d pretty much disesteemed or mentally struck off most of these essays and my
dissertation as (at best) half-hearted attempts at simply managing to scrape
by. Trying my best not to flunk when I’d pretty much lost all interest in the
degree itself. Thinking back, there was of course a lot more to life going on back
then than simply studying for studying’s sake. I moved into a shared student house
for much of my first year, but student life didn’t really turn out to be what
I’d hoped or anticipated it might be. So I moved home for the last two years of
my degree, commuting a long way to attend lectures. But fortunately, my
timetable was very condensed, which meant I was able to work while still doing
my degree full-time. This wasn’t an ideally conducive situation for making the
best of my studies, although it did mean I was in a better position at the end
of my degree to get a full-time job. I’d just missed out on that financial golden
era of full student grants, but I had managed to dodge the incoming new trend (or,
rather, the poisoned chalice) of student loans and skyrocketing course fees.
This kind of hybrid-way of studying
as an undergraduate also meant I was well-prepared for taking on a part-time MA
and then a part-time PhD while continuing to work full-time – although I
wouldn’t recommend it. It is hugely demanding and requires a vast reserve of
stoicism and staying power. I really wish I had been lucky enough to have
experienced that cloistered collegiate system of university learning which I
had seen and partly experienced during my initial application process to study “Arc’
and Anth’” at Durham University. It’s a kind of alternate academic universe
which I can sort of still picture and imagine myself having lived. However,
looking back at the reality of the hand which Fate’s celestial croupier dealt
me, I think I did manage to make the best of things in the long run. And,
despite the odds against it, even that first disconsolate degree wasn’t wholly a wasted effort.
It is fascinating to re-read those early essays and reassess them now. The very first of them are awful. My spelling and punctuation look like I’d typed them while blindfolded! – But the quick shift up in gear shown in the essays that follow, particularly those which were written in my second and third years, is quite remarkable. They very quickly become passable academic efforts, and although my writing style and authorial voice is disarmingly direct and informal (there’s a lot of “But in my opinion …”, “I think it’s clear …”, “We should more correctly say …”, and the like). In some ways, it’s quite amusing and heartening to be re-introduced to this former me – a teenager emerging into his early twenties – with no real knowledge of the world at large, pontificating ever so wisely about the evolution of human societies and the origins of culture. In truth, though – even now, I have no faith in my own knowledge or confidence that I know the first thing about whatever it is I am writing about. I’m constantly haunted by the fact that it might well be (and very probably is) glaringly obvious to everyone else that I’ve got it all completely wrong. Forever walking that overly faux-confident knife-edge between mediocrity and a nervous breakdown. Socrates was right, the more we learn the more we realise how little we actually know.
When I began my PhD, I was very aware
of the seemingly widespread and all too ubiquitous horror stories of those
already swamped in doing theirs. I saw their angst-ridden lamentations vented
on-line with the hashtag #phdchat, and I naively – but 100% confidently
– assumed that this wouldn’t apply to me. How could it? – I’d had fifteen ‘gap
years’ to prepare, and I’d already begun researching and even publishing on my
chosen subject. I had always wanted to do a PhD. I can remember deciding I
would one day do one when I was just 11 years old! – Consequently, this was
something which I had been getting ready for all my life. I was (then) 39 years
old. It would be fine. Totally fine. A doddle even, I told myself. But most
importantly it would be something which I wouldn’t rush. It would be something
which I would do properly and well.
… Ha!
Looking back (but sparing the
reader all the boringly intricate and gruesome details), it is something which
I did to the best of my abilities given the circumstances; which, ultimately,
is all that anyone can ever hope to do in whatever task we apply ourselves to.
However. As always, at all levels
throughout the course of my formal education, I see the root of all my
difficulties and struggles actually lies in the process itself. I’ve
always thought education was about learning, remembering, analysing, and
applying oneself. But, time and again, what I have consistently overlooked is
that it is a process. If you know and understand the rules of the game
you can play it and pass, and progress. But what I didn’t realise about the
final hurdle of the PhD is that it is primarily about endurance.
Re-reading my undergraduate essays,
I can clearly see the huge leap up from A-level to degree standard. Likewise, I
can see the onward jump in sophistication and refinement to MA level. But the key
requisites for PhD survival are something else entirely. It is an acutely observed and intensely mediated process. The kind of criticism
you get is constant and relentless. You must learn to forbear because the
levels of frustration and the grace with which you endure it is what ultimately
defines both you and your PhD experience. It’s impossible to explain this
aspect to anyone who has not experienced it. And this isn’t an elitist thing.
I’ve found it an incomprehensible process to explain to other people who have
not done a PhD. Quite logically, it seems utterly baffling to them: How can you
be engaged in something which appears to have no deadlines, and the deadlines
it does seem to have in the end turn out to be entirely elastic, such that a
PhD appears to be a never-ending process? Essentially, a
self-torturing metaphysical path which extends ever onwards into infinity!
All levels of education are a rite of passage. But I am a stubborn sort, and so once begun I resolved never to give up. In truth, it probably began on a September day way back in 1981 – my first day at school – although naturally I had no idea at the time. Many of my teachers during my school years used to write damningly in my school reports that I was too slow and methodical, too set upon doing things in my own way when otherwise not totally disinterested in the proceedings. Not bright by any means. Dyscalculiac and put in the “special needs” category early on, I never let the officially-sanctioned dents that got bashed into me put me off. I later spent those fifteen ‘gap years’ immersed in libraries, reading and learning to write, making up for the things I’d missed or wasn’t actually taught (such as the rudiments of spelling and grammar), attempting to find out and fathom for myself the various aspects and fundamental elements which I’d misunderstood. Effectively trying to re-wire my brain so that I could give it my best shot and reach the final finish line. And thankfully, at long last, it seems as though I have finally made it. And most importantly, I’ve reached the end without losing my essential love nor my basic interest in the subject which I chose to research and write about. Looking back at those early undergraduate essays, it’s interesting to see how far I’ve come. My PhD thesis might not be exactly what I wanted or intended it to be, but it has officially met the required standards. It’s done. And as for what happens next, I have no idea if I have the energy or level of intellect required to keep going beyond this point. Feeling somewhat deflated and oddly adrift in the post-PhD doldrums, all I can do at the moment is keep reminding myself that I did it. I survived this last part of the process. It’s done. It’s over (... except for some ‘minor revisions’).
I’ll never be able to properly
explain what completing and passing my PhD truly means to me, quite simply
because it is not in the slightest bit important to anyone else. And that’s the
only piece of advice I can or am now fully qualified to give to anyone else who
might be contemplating doing a PhD, which is: it’s only worth doing a PhD – if
it is important to you – to do a PhD.
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