One of those things we just don't talk about...

I think I have a bit of a reputation amongst my academic colleagues for 1) doing things we're "not supposed to do" (burlesque dancing at the faculty talent show, anyone?) and 2) writing/talking about things we're "not supposed to".

For instance, as academics we are supposed to show how smoothly our field research went, lest someone criticise it for not being done properly, or being sloppy and "unscientific". In contrast, the entire prologue of my master's thesis was about how difficult and challenging my fieldwork ended up being. Why did I feel a need to discuss that? Well, mostly because I think it's pure and total bullshit that people aren't honest about being human beings, and about having feelings and personal stuff influencing their work. It does, and if other people can understand how one's research was affected by that stuff, readers will have a better understanding of the research and its results. So, we should talk about it. There is a lot in anthropology about the need to be reflexive, but I think that a lot of the time that self-reflexivity is very censored, and that's just plain unhelpful.

One of the other things I enjoy doing is writing in a way that anyone can read and understand what I'm saying. Again, although there are certainly more progressive people in the academy who also want to write like this, it seems to end up being that the researchers who are most highly prized and put on a pedestal, are the ones we, as academics, can barely understand ourselves! (Haraway, anyone? Okay, so I can understand some of her stuff quite well, but with other pieces of her writing, I am a lost cause.) The best part is that few people are willing to admit that they can't understand it, and the ones who understand it the least seem to be the ones who use that type of language the most, to make themselves appear more important. They come to conferences and use that language, not necessarily understanding what they're saying themselves, so it often doesn't make a lot of sense, but everyone happily plays along and pretends we're all on the same page. And yes, these are often the same people who simply read out their papers at conferences, with no thought to actually crafting a presentation that is visually engaging and comprehensible. (And they're the same people who plan conferences and don't make powerpoint available to those of us who do want to engage our audience. Bastards.)

But, I digress.

I am about to blog about something I'm not supposed to talk about. It is somtimes popularly discussed amongst academics as "Impostor Syndrome", but I'll be more frank: I often don't feel good enough to do a PhD, and certainly not to finish it.

It's a feeling that waxes and wanes... as one of my good friends said, "sometimes I feel like a 'PhD Star', but mostly I feel like a 'PhD Loser'." I've felt mostly like a PhD Loser since I struggled to write my Dissertation Proposal in late 2009/early 2010, aside from my fieldwork in the spring/summer after that. My comprehensive exams were hard, but ultimately they were just long papers that had to be defended in front of my committee, which I did well. The fieldwork was tricky too, but I'm good at the people-part and I love travelling and being out-and-about (especially in the UK!), so that was by far the best part of the program for me.

But, now that I'm at the "sit down and write something everyone is going to judge you by" part of the program, it's been damned hard. Not only is it a completely different frame of mind/process than the fieldwork I just finished, but it's also bringing back a lot of the bad feelings I had after writing my proposal. Not that my proposal wasn't good enough, or that I'm ashamed of it, but during the process of writing, it felt very "not good enough", and it certainly felt that way in the defense, too! One of the things I'm struggling with the most is getting constructive feedback. I rarely get a chance to meet with my committee members, and they're all doing their best to be helpful, but I feel so "not good enough" that I take their critical suggestions very hard.

Academia is a place where you have to get used to constructive criticism: if you don't, you probably won't survive. The problem is that it's also a place where positive reinforcement - especially at the upper levels - is a true scarcity. I look forward to meeting with my supervisor because she has good ideas, and I like the opportunity to discuss my work with someone (I feel well and truly intellectually alone, otherwise!), but I have rarely been told by any of my committee that I'm doing a good job. And when you're in the part of the program that less than 50% of the people who've attempted it actually finish, it's really, really important to hear those words, or something like them. (Apparently, only 41% of people who start a PhD in sociology finish, and the average completion time for a PhD in the social sciences is 8 years. Yes, 8 full years. Keep in mind I'm only in year 4, so I'm doing pretty well!)

I have been reflecting on why I don't hear those words of encouragement. Was writing a dissertation "easier" for the people I work with than it is for me? Maybe. It may also have been their circumstances, though - two were married at the time, with at least one child, and although I can't see the latter helping the situation at all, just having a familial network of support may have made a big difference. But they must have struggled sometimes, and so it's hard for me to understand why I feel like I'm getting so little positive reinforcement - if they remember what the process is like, don't they know I need it? However, this made me think about how easy it is for me to slip in to "constructive criticism mode" with my own students; I have to really consciously remember to look for/tell them the all good things they are doing in their work, even when I'm gently (or, not so gently, as the case may be) telling them that they need to improve some things, or try thinking from another perspective. It really does seem to be that we're conditioned, in the culture of academia, to be critical, rather than supportive. And that is a real shame. No wonder so few people finish!

I was out with a friend last night who dropped out of her PhD program in history after completing 6 years. She was an all-star undergrad and master's student who was ridiculously successful in getting external funding, and she had all the potential to be a great academic. And then she lost her drive, and burnt out, and realised that it wasn't for her - and it took a lot of courage to not only realise those things, but to act on them and leave the program after devoting so much time to it. She is now happily employed with a non-profit organisation, and I was talking about how I am feeling right now. She remarked that, now that she's out in the world of work, it's shocking to realise how stuff that would have been critiqued to death in the academy and considered not good enough, is perceived to be pretty fantastic in the real world.

Now, this isn't to say I think universities should lower their standards, but I think maybe the world of work is just more embracing of different, or more creative ways of doing things (going back to my point above about writing for a wide audience), and that it is a place that often fosters collaboration and postive thinking. People aren't meant to work in such isolated conditions, especially when their writing time is fragmented by the multiple part-time jobs many of us have to take on just to make ends meet. Then, top this off with comments at committee meetings that are often well-intentioned, but prove to be emotionally destructive to someone who is struggling so hard to write at all, since their not-good-enough-ness is making that part hard enough in the first place, and you've got the perfect recipe for someone not being able to complete.

All that said, I am going to complete. Acknowledgeing the feelings I'm struggling with is the first step, I think, and I've done that. Now I have to work through them. Talking/writing is a good method, and I've also started to use EFT, which is the most amazing tool for healing I have ever come across, and it's helped quite a bit already. (I've been doing it for a few years and will save that topic for another post). And, I just need to get writing! Even though I'm afraid of the judgement that comes after the writing, I think maybe I'll start by showing it to a few other grad student friends first... and then work up to getting feedback from my committee members. Safety first! :)