Postgraduate researcher Nsikan opens up about the realities of PhD life, sharing honest insights, personal triumphs, and the challenges she’s faced along the way.
Embarking on a Postgraduate Research (PGR) journey is not an easy ride! Like a crawling caterpillar to a beautiful butterfly, it’s a transformative experience - challenging, evolving and deeply personal. Within a short time on this path, I’ve come to understand that the PGR journey isn’t just about academic achievement; it’s about developing self-awareness, commitment, resilience, and making room for both personal and professional growth.
In a recent open forum on navigating this complex journey, three distinct voices stood out: a novice researcher, an emerging independent scholar, and a seasoned post-doctoral researcher. Their perspectives - different yet overlapping - highlighted a shared truth: the PGR experience is as much about managing life alongside conducting research.
The Honeymoon Phase: Where Dreams Take Flight
The start of the journey for most is a mix of passion, optimism and drive for change and contribution to the field. The novice researcher often starts with intellectual curiosity running high, keen for supervision meetings, proposal revisions, and the unfolding of brilliant ideas.
But like all honeymoons, this phase doesn’t last forever.
When Reality Hits: Deadlines, Doubt, and the Daily Grind
Soon enough, the real demands of postgraduate research settle in the mind-blowing eureka when you recognise research gaps; prepare conference presentations; engage in long library sessions, stimulating supervision meetings and bubbling brainstorming sessions with peers.
In this new world, we learn a research language and culture that metamorphizes our views, approach and response to our research and more broadly to the world. In the busyness and multi-tasking, enthusiasm can ebb and flow, sometimes replaced by anxiety, uncertainty, and moments of self-doubt. It is in the stillness of these moments that the reason for the journey becomes more pronounced and poignant.
Refreshingly, everyone struggles to manage personal and family life alongside undertaking the research. At this point, many students face a quiet battle: juggling personal commitments, family, financial pressures, and the emotional weight of missed social events. During this juggling act, one skill we learn and develop overtime as researchers is staying “calm in the midst of the storms” as we work towards the prize.
The Inner Struggles: Isolation and Imposter Syndrome
There’s a side of postgraduate research that’s rarely talked about - the mental toll. Astonished by isolation and imposter syndrome; the researcher navigates through two worlds: a world conceptualising frameworks, theories, and academic etymology and the world filled of the ebb and flow of family life and routine, relationship mayhem, individual changes, bills and societal expectations. Despite this, a voice within keeps saying, “I can do it. I will excel.”
Coping Mechanisms: Planning, Support, and Perspective
Planning becomes second nature - calendar reminders, sticky notes, and colour-coded schedules. Notion, Monday.com and Click Up becomes household names for project management, but even the best plans can't prevent emergencies or the unpredictable nature of research. It is in these moments that we learn to embrace the growing pains as part and parcel of becoming.
One of the most powerful takeaways from the forum was the recognition of available support. No one has it all figured out. Students lean on spirituality, peer groups, and institutional resources. Forums like these provide a space to speak candidly about the struggles - and victories - that mark the PGR journey.
Feed-Forwards: Wisdom for the Journey Ahead
Here is a response to the quiet anxiety, uncertainties, and underlying voice that questions whether the PGR journey is worth it: resilience and hard work pays off. Learning to celebrate small wins, embrace constructive feedback, and view every challenge as part of the growth process is crucial. Progress isn't always loud. Sometimes, it’s happening quietly, even when no one claps.
As echoed by the post-doctoral researcher, resilience and hard work do pay off. Here are a few enduring lessons:
- Set boundaries and prioritise what truly matters.
- Rest - the journey is a marathon, not a sprint.
- Recognise when you’re overwhelmed and seek support.
- Protect your mental health - step back when necessary and seek help.
- Be teachable - growth lives in openness, not perfection.
Final Thoughts
The postgraduate research journey is indeed a whirlwind. It stretches and reshapes you. It isolates you at times, but it also empowers you. Through the storms and stillness, the feedback and failures, there is growth.
And in the end, it's worth it.
