#phdjourney

Ada kalanya hidup ini diuji dengan mendapatkan dan melepaskan. Seringnya kita lupa tentang melepaskan dan mengingkan rasa mendapatkan terus menerus. Tanpa sadar, muatan di hati dan pikiran sudah sangat penuh hingga langkah terasa berat bahkan nyaris tidak ada perpindahan.

Rupanya, hidup juga menginginkan setiap kita untuk melepaskan. Meninggalkan sesuatu yang sejatinya bukan milik kita. Jika dipikir ulang, tidak ada yang benar-benar menjadi kepunyaan manusia, bahkan napasnya sendiri juga bukan kepemilikan si punya badan.

Maka, belajar untuk merelakan, melepaskan, menghempaskan adalah hal penting. Agar dada itu tidak terbebani tumpukan sampah, gunungan rasa yg tidak pada tempatnya.

sorry you sent this just before I went to bed so I thought I would answer it better in the morning.

First off, congrats on getting to the end of the masters! That's huge and I hope you celebrate as you deserve! :))) My field in the arts. I've talked before that my background is in music. My current research is adjacent to that but I won't go in too much detail because of doxxing myself lol.

So, cons first. Doing a PhD is (generally) a pretty bad career move. You're gearing yourself up to enter into academia, which is a notoriously competitive field. I have a friend who finished their PhD, wanted a break from research and tried to get a post in a commercial sphere (they're in STEM). And despite being extremely qualified, they couldn't get a post because they have so little actual work experience. So they had to get postdoc position instead. If you're set on trying for research, I would recommend doing what I did: working for 1-2 years after your masters so you at least have some experience, and then going back to the PhD. I know that if it all doesn't work out for me at the academy, I can at least fall back on teaching. So this gives me some comfort (even though I don't want to go back to teaching lmao).

Second major con. It's really, really hard. Bachelors was tricky for me because I took extra credits and was run off my feet, but nothing was particular intellectually taxing in the broad scheme of things. Masters was harder, but mostly because of how self-motivated you need to be. It's difficult to explain just how much harder the PhD has been. The jump is insane, between the hand-holding of the masters and the "you're producing your own work now :smile:" You'll feel dumber than you've ever felt, and that usually means you're on the right track. It's extremely humbling lol.

On top of this, the work is so conceptual, meaning you'll spend many a morning staring at the wall thinking. And that's still productive. But super anxiety-inducing if you like being organized and seeing linear progress. It's particularly dangerous if you're prone to getting distracted. I've known multiple (incredibly smart) people who've had full-on breakdowns during the thesis-writing process. The advisors/supervisors are not very good at helping you here. My advisors are the kindest people, but in terms of practical advice, they are completely useless. I've spent the past 18 months wading through this almost on my own, and only recently have I seen some results from it. Also, if you're on a bursary/scholarship like me, you'll have funders breathing down your neck asking where your fucking publications are. And that's just a joyyyyy to deal with on top of everything else /s. Funders do not really understand how non-linear this is. They just want those damn papers in those damn journals, so they can see the return in their investment (which is you).

So those are pretty huge fucking cons. Pros, anyone?? Well, leading from the last con, I have never attempted something quite so intellectually challenging and I love that! It's so difficult, but I get to spend my whole day reading an interesting (and extremely dense) text on a topic I love. I get to tear apart the author, learn from the progress, and improve my own understanding. I've had to brush against so many fields I would never have engaged with if I kept working instead of studying: branches of philosophy, politics, history, anthropology, sociology, language, psychology - the list goes on. It's deeply, deeply exciting, when I can step back from the overwhelming nature of it all.

I also see myself becoming more... curious about everything? I go through phases of this, but I've started to look at everything differently. See a bad movie? Suddenly my mind is full of questions. Why did I find it bad? What does it say about me, about the movie, about the people who made it, and about the people who enjoyed it? I'll see extremely opinionated posts on here, and I notice my gut response is now a curious interest in the person who wrote the post, in how others respond, and what that says about the interaction. This is probably the nature of my own studies seeping in, but it's definitely a huge plus for me. I am asking questions I never even knew to ask, only a year ago.

Talking of personal growth - this degree has made me farrr more articulate in-person. I've always been Confident, but I'm slowly gaining the vocabulary to back this confidence up. And that's just because I spend all my days reading extremely dense texts and publications. I think this would happen to anyone who pushed themselves in this way, but I have the privilege of this being my whole-ass occupation for 3 years. If I was still working, I would never have the time or energy. I've also met fascinating people who have pushed my assumptions of the world in every direction (ever meet an extremely smart person who has the stupidest ideas? that'll force you to reconcile yourself to sooo many things lolol). I've been to amazing talks, presentations, workshops that I never would have.

Unbelievable but true: I’m starting the fourth and final year of my PhD. By this time next year, I should be submitting my thesis, six weeks before defending it. 👩🏼‍🔬

I still have a long way to go, so naturally, I’m spending a lot of time planning instead of actually working—just kidding… sort of. Anyway, I needed to put some things down on paper to create a sense of internal accountability. ✨

I’m trying my very best to approach this next year as consciously and consistently as I can. This is something I have never really managed to achieve before, which is why I’m building an internal accountability system to support me along the way. Even though it currently feels as though planning all of this might be a waste of time, I genuinely believe it will help me. And, of course, I’ll update you whenever I can. 😊

My first milestone is October 2, when I’ll give a 15-minute presentation followed by a five-minute Q&A at a local conference. Until then, I’m focusing on doing more analysis, producing high-quality figures, reading, and, more generally, turning the data I currently have into a coherent and interesting story.

Alongside this, I’m also troubleshooting my experimental setup—something I have been procrastinating on quite a lot.

Does anyone else experience this strange inhibition where you know that, once you fully commit, you are capable of doing the work, but committing is also terrifying because it forces you to ask why you did not do it sooner? 😐

It feels like confronting the realization that I have not been using my full potential, and that honestly scares me. At the same time, I recently read that mentally strong people do not spend too much time dwelling on thoughts like these. So perhaps I should simply dive into the work.

I’ll try.

As a supportive companion during this process, I’m currently listening to Csikszentmihalyi’s Flow audiobook on an endless loop. 📙🎵

Hello, guys! What's up?

Okay, this time, I'd like to tell you the truth.

Lately, I've been making time for my hobbies again. I've been going swimming once a week, and after that, I usually go grocery shopping. I also started drawing again after such a long time. Besides reading research papers, I've been reading novels too. Every morning or night, I try to do some journaling.

Oh, I almost forgot! I've also been doing strength training and jogging on the weekends. Honestly, all of these little habits have helped me so much in coping with the stress I've been dealing with. Not to mention, I feel so much better than I did before. Before I realized how important these things were, my life was basically just research, studying, and lab work. Eventually, I started feeling unmotivated and exhausted every time I went to the lab.

I have so many presentations in my lab that it's honestly driving me crazy. You can ask my housemate about it. If there were an award, I'd probably win **"The Presenter of the Year"** because I've been giving presentations three or four times a month—sometimes even more than I can count!

I don't know... but I genuinely feel much better now.

I know I still have to write my thesis and research papers (you know... I'm a PhD student :D), and I'll keep working on them.

But I'll also keep swimming. Lol.

i'm back!! so sorry for my prolonged absence; i was back in the UK for a bit visiting my partner for his master's graduation! but now i am back and very very behind on my summer work ;-;