This is hard work

I’ve been spending the past two months bunkered down in an old stone building in Cornwall writing my PhD dissertation. It sounds idyllic doesn’t it, almost romantic, like a writing retreat in Bali.

But it doesn’t feel like it. It feels like hard work, like back-breaking, low-paid, hard work!

I know, I know – typing some words on a screen is not the same as ‘real’ hard work. I know this because I grew up on a farm and understand what ‘real’ hard works looks like, what it feels like, tastes like and smells like. It means coming home at the end of the day exhausted, sore and hungry. But I am all those things at the end of my days now! My brain is exhausted, my back is sore from sitting, and I seem to want to eat all the time.

I understand full well that I actually have a lot to be thankful for – I am on a scholarship so I do get some pay, and I am able to juggle my job around my study. I also have a space to work in that is mostly quiet and free from distraction. I have plenty of regular support from my supervisor and I am even enjoying parts of this writing process. A lot of other students battling through the enormity of an 80,000-word thesis have none of these things.

It just seems so intense, so all consuming. I’ve been told that part of what a PhD tests is your ability to endure, to run the long race. For a natural sprinter like me, this has indeed been an added challenge. It seems I am learning as much about myself as I am about academic research and my topic of exploration (local news). That sort of growth is bound to require some real hard work.