The post-doctorate blues

What happens when the learning's done

A guest post this week, as I need some time to catch up on writing!

Thanks very much for Sam Mace, who writes the excellent Theory Matters ‘Stack, which you can subscribe to here. You can also find an interview between Sam and I here.

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Photo of Man Wearing Corporate Attire In Front Of White Board. Photo by Vanessa Garcia via pexels.com

Sitting at my old bureau, surrounded by piles of books both read and unread next to my bed, I do sometimes wonder if it was the right decision to embark on a PhD. My bound thesis sits next to me, staring at me all day and night. I am simultaneously delighted at its publication (after all, it did take four years of my life) while at the same time feeling a sense of dread and hate. Did it really take all those years of sweat and many tears to produce something simultaneously unique and worthless? This paradox sits at the heart of every PhD’s journey and continues once the work of research has finished.

Being almost 30 and never having had a ‘full time job’ with a continuous pay cheque is a source of shame, embarrassment, and almost constant anxiety. I am the only one amongst my friendship group who can lay claim to this particularly dubious honour. People will not say to my face ‘Well that was a waste of time’ but given the state of the current academic job market, with precarity and competition at an all time high and jobs at an all time low, it must be a question some perhaps wonder about in my presence. Whilst I can recite esoteric facts about a sliver of a subject or explain my thesis, the question must be asked: What was it for?

These are not questions unique to me. Yet I am sure if you ask any jobless post-PhD similar feelings will be either expressed or at least hinted at. Some may say this is due to it being a certain personality type who undertake this exercise in the first place. Like many who decide to attempt a PhD, I have a desire to prove myself, most likely born out of a feeling deep inside that I’m not or never have been good enough. This unhealthy dynamic helps produce a cohort of people bound to struggle once structure, satisfaction, and recognition have been removed.

However, the structural realities of UK Higher Education and the current job market make any personal analysis only part of the equation. Today, many of us go to university. The rate of university participation has flown up from the single or low double digits in the 1980s to almost half of all school leavers today. There is nothing rare about it, yet for a small minority of the increasing numbers passing through hallowed halls of institutions, they move onto not just postgraduate taught study but postgraduate research.

Those who do a PhD, around 2% of the population, are told they are precious commodities with companies lining up to take them on for their experience and unique skill sets. 2% of the population does not sound like a large amount of the people but the PhD class has grown significantly. In relative terms these numbers remain small but with the number of PhD candidates rising, it would be foolish to predict any real change in this most unsatisfactory of arrangements. This is merely one tale in the wider failures of Higher Education which are leading to mass strikes and dissatisfaction from every party in the system.

The relative rarity of PhDs leads to universities telling us we are precious commodities. That companies are lining up to take us on for our experience and unique skill sets. Despite this apparent attractiveness there is an emerging problem; many PhDs feel lost as to what to do when they have finished their research project. The traditional route of going into academia is increasingly unobtainable with the abundance of academics and paucity of positions reaching critical mass. Even if you do somehow manage to bag a position, it is often short term, stressful and below what many wannabe academics consider their economic worth. At best, post-PhDs can expect a bumpy ride. Yet for an increasing number of PhDs academia simply has no place for them.

Institutions may tell them how great they are but give little guidance about what to do once their project has finished.  My experience was a number of career events that told me nothing of worth as to what was out there or what I could do with my supposed ‘valuable skill set’. Frustrated by the lack of direction in the events, I plucked up the courage to ask a question about how I could use my research skills.  I was told to either teach or to join a company which makes educational materials. In essence, when looking for a job I was told to use the skills I had learned from my part-time work, as opposed to my experience as a researcher.

I was not only disappointed at the obvious lack of preparation from the speaker but my ‘research identity’ had taken a hit. People’s sense of self often gets wrapped up in research and helps define ‘who’ they are, not just ‘what’ they do. The same had happened to me. You become consumed by your thesis, travelling across the country, or the world, to deliver papers at frequently sparsely attended conferences and spend countless hours in the office or at home trawling through an almost insurmountable number of papers. The thesis becomes a significant part of who you are. It becomes a part of your identity, always existing, not just in the background but sometimes in the foreground too.

Being told nonchalantly by a smiling careers’ officer that my research path was over and to get ready to set in to a 9-5 away from all of that was more than telling me that my academic dream was unlikely. It was a blow to who and what I was. It made all my efforts feel like a waste of time; nothingness engulfed me as I heard his answer through my computer screen. The thing I loved most, had worked towards for years, felt like it was completely out of reach.

Tears fell from my eyes in my dank basement as I was told the answer I most desperately did not want to hear. Filled with an existential fear about what my future held and what I could do with my qualifications I felt lost in a way that I had not before. Perhaps this seems petty to you readers and indeed I feel a sense of shame writing it. It is not that I have not known loss before, I have, but this was a type of fear and heartache that seemed to have no expiration date.

So now here I sit 18 months later. I am at home, in an attic, applying for all kinds of jobs relating to my ‘transferable skills’. I now accept that my research is likely to be a part-time activity, a thing I work on during evenings and weekends which brings inner satisfaction if not a satisfiable or sustainable income. I try to tell myself it was all worth it, that I dug deep into areas of interest which brought me new perspectives, opening myself up to new experiences, and have produced a volume of work that at least one person may read besides myself. All of these are valuable despite my current lack of direction.

If you enjoy this, stick me a Ko-Fi - it goes to Dr Sam this week