Academia is a marathon
At last, it is done! 4.5 years after starting my PhD program, I successfully defended my thesis my thesis this March. What remains is a mix of relief, pride, and gratitude. Here, I reflect on my research journey and what I learned personally and professionally.
Since I graduated, people asked me if I would do it again. The honest answer is: Going back in time, probably yes, but another degree now, certainly not. I feel similarly to right after my first half marathon. Happy but exhausted — no desire to run another 21k, enough is enough. There are many reasons for this: work conditions in academia (#ichbinhanna), a desire to have a more direct impact with what I do, wanting to develop as a leader. Nevertheless, I’m glad I went down this path, as it’s probably one of the best schools in working toward an abstract, long-term goal. Here’s what it taught me:
Grit beats intelligence
I hate to break it to you, but: just because someone has a PhD does not make them the smartest in the room. However, I would argue that they might be the most stubborn in the room. Working on a PhD is a rollercoaster ride in which you need to handle tough feedback and long stretches of aloneness when it comes to your dissertation.
Personally, I have found that in critical situations I preferred not asking myself too many questions on why I’m doing this, but a certain sense of ‘whatever, gotta stick with it!’ This was a mixed blessing: while grit and persistence were essential for the PhD journey, they came with the risk of disconnecting from my initial motivation to embark on it.
Balancing curiosity and pragmatism
I have found that working on research projects requires a fine balance of curiosity and pragmatism. You need to cultivate your curiosity to come up with and ask hard questions, but if you don’t want to devote 10 years or more to figuring them out, you need to cultivate a sense of pragmatism to be satisfied with a ‘good enough for now’ answer to them.
To give you another example, I started my PhD being curios about one core topic, and added the second one rather pragmatically since it’s my supervisor’s expertise. I then developed curiosity for this topic as well, but including it was driven by pragmatism, namely knowing that my supervisor would be able and willing to help me with it.
How to manage oneself
Given how most PhD student-supervisor relationships are organized, PhDs are largely their own boss who sometimes meet with their coach, and these meetings are sometimes more, sometimes less illuminating. This allows for a lot of freedom, but at the same time gives you the sole responsibility for your output.
In my case, this taught me how to motivate myself, how to manage my time, how to set clear boundaries, and how to find, learn, and work with allies. I learned how to set up routines that work for me, how to look and ask for help, when to stop waiting and start acting, and probably most importantly, how to say no.
Onward and upward
I have made the decision to leave academia and work as a public sector consultant. My new job excites me, I enjoy interacting with my colleagues and clients on a daily basis, and while I benefit from what I learned during my PhD, I am developing a lot of new skills. Let’s see what’s next!
