Doing your Phd means doing a research project for a number of years. These number of years are usually fixed. As a Phd candidate, you are supposed to start at a certain date and also to finish at a certain date. You sign a contract…it’s an official thing.
Supervisors monitor your progress and colleagues ask in which year you are or for how long you still have to continue.
If only it was that simple….
In the past year I have been thinking a lot about my Phd, and honestly, I did not really want to finish it.
I had it all worked out: If I wouldn’t finish my Phd, I could collect more data and extend my longitudinal research with teachers in secondary schools. Next to that, I could write more articles, learn more from my supervisors and I continue to develop myself as a teacher educator. I could continue to have fun with my colleagues and feel at home at my institute.
It seemed like a piece of cake: All I had to do was not finish my Phd, then all this would not end.
I told many people about my plan. They looked at me strangely. They did not understand my plan at all.
How could I like my Phd that much? They wondered. Finishing my Phd seemed the end of such a nice time and I was not sure about ‘the PhD afterlife’.
Luckily, I got the chance to start my Phd afterlife at the Iclon. It turns out that in the Phd afterlife you can still have fun with colleagues, write articles, do longitudinal research with secondary school teachers, learn from others and feel at home at your institute. Such a relief! Now I realize that I do want to finish my PhD.
Fortunately, the finish is not the end.
Anna van der Want
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Dear Anna,
funny blog. I recognize some things. Afterlife PhD project will be organized and emerge, I am sure of it, but it is not naturally offered, I think,luck has to be forced a and helped bit.
succes,
Monica.