Any decent Graduate School training programme includes workshops to help a student along every step of the road to a doctorate. There are programmes on how to use Microsoft Word, workshops on time management, guides to dealing with a supervisor, advice on preparing for a viva and, finally, guidance on finding jobs when that doctorate is in hand. But pause and backtrack. Between these final stages there is a step missing, one you do not even think about when you are writing and researching, and which I encountered only on my return from the Christmas break.
Having
submitted a few days before Santa geared up his reindeer, when I came back after the festivities were over, and sat down at my desk to catch up on the emails that had built up, I went to compose a reply and realised my signature was wrong. Previously, my signature line included my name followed by an unambiguous statement of my position: "PhD Research Student." I also included the address of my department, and a link to my research profile.
But what should my signature line say now? I am not really a PhD student any more, as I have not gone into continuation and have paid no fees, and I am not actively researching. But neither am I a post-doc, since I have no doctorate yet. Using the departmental address, too, seems a bit odd, since although I am teaching a considerable amount in my department, the bulk of my salary comes from a job at one of the university libraries. Then again, putting "Library Dogsbody" after my name would confuse my students. So I went for the minimal approach, just my plain old name and email address. Not even any of the letters I have accumulated: BA, MA,
AHEA. As I have come to realise, the period after submitting but before viva-ing (is that a verb? it sounds like some Latin dance) has no name, which perhaps explains why it is overlooked on training programmes.
Since Christmas, I have been caught in a peculiar routine. Following the advice of friends who have graduated, I am not going to look at or work on my thesis until closer to my viva in Easter. Instead, I have spent the last month or so getting on with my teaching preparation, reading
Paradise Lost and
Midnight's Children, and mugging up on Freud and deconstruction. I have also had a lot of marking to do. However, my days are by not bursting at the seams of time as they were in the run up to submission last term.
I do have a few research thoughts bubbling in the back of my mind - something on mobile phone fictions, something on complexity, a paper on Frederic Jameson and computer games - but to be honest I simply cannot be bothered to get going on any one of these; when I do, no doubt I'll post thoughts in progress on this blog.
I think I was so burnt out before Christmas that I cannot bear the thought of starting from scratch on a new project. Indeed, I am not sure I can even remember how to begin
in principle, because it is so long since I actually researched anything original, took down notes, and wrote down ideas. Although I have never worked harder than the previous six months, that period of finishing my thesis consisted mostly of re-writing and editing, with very little original thought, and certainly no writing 1000 words on a page that had been blank at the start of the day. This was the Polyfiller phase of PhD, when I filled in the gaps and smoothed the cracks of my existing writing and research. Those days three long years ago when I used to sit reading all morning, go for a walk after lunch, and dash out some brilliant (or so they seemed at the time) paragraphs on my computer are distant memories.
This phase, then, can best be described as a limbo. I am not in the heavenly phase of discovering new and interesting ideas, but neither am I experiencing the hell of getting these ideas coherently written during excessively busy days. I am something more than a PhD student, for in the last six months I finally became confident as a researcher, but I am not yet wearing the badge of "Dr" that makes my skills official. And, of course, there is the distinct possibility that I will not be awarded the PhD straight away, but will have to do substantial corrections.
I am still kicking around my department, nattering easily with staff and other postgraduates as I photocopy teaching handouts, but I am conscious that my eyes should really be set on other jobs, in a different university. I am financially comfortable, what with my library and teaching jobs and Mrs. Ishmael's salary also, and could happily drift along like this for the next few years; however, I know that this is not a long-term, secure career.
Perhaps I would feel happier if I at least had a label to attach to this short phase of my life. Pre-post-doc is a bit clumsy. Post-Phd-student is a bit contradictory. Any better ideas?
Labels: Postgraduate Diary, viva
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