Waxing Philosophical
One of the questions everyone asks me these days is: "How is your PhD coming along?"
The thing about a PhD is that it doesn't 'come along'. It's a qualification, like any other, that says you know enough about a particular sub-area of knowledge to probably lecture anyone else about it. It says nothing about how much more competent or useful you might be. It does, however, imply that you have the 'iron backside' to work at something until it's done.
This has always been my problem. I don't have the 'iron backside' nor the 'brass spheres' to sit down and hammer at something until it's done. I need to get up and walk around, look at the problem from all angles, learn things about the things that are about the things that are about my topic, and so on.
I finished my PhD module exams about five years ago, getting an 'A' for each module. It's the dissertation, that 120,000 word monster, that is occupying about 60% of my resources! As many people will tell you, it's not the length, but the strength. I believe that when I'm done, the thesis will stand as a fairly strong and interesting one. It might even be useful. But it is agony to churn out five thousand words and then spend the next day rewriting four thousand of them.
Even at that rate, people might say, "Shouldn't your dissertation then take 120 days to write?" Heh. It doesn't quite work that way. As the length of the thing grows, its complexity also increases. In order for it to remain coherent, you need to check more things. And as you check more things, things get more complicated because of new input.
They say it should take you not more than 80 hours to do a 4000-word extended essay. That's about right. For 120,000 words you would probably need 2400 hours, with about 12 really solid productive hours a week. It will take about 200 weeks, or four years working full-time, to do a proper PhD unless you have it set up just right.
Unfortunately, not everyone gets it right from the beginning. Some of us start from scratch or from scanty foundations. This isn't always a bad thing, since you explore a lot of new ground. But it can be terrible when you find yourself out in the wasteland and wondering what on earth (or where on earth) you are, metaphorically speaking.
Right now, I sense I have reached critical mass. I have explored my tiny microcosmic space and I know it fairly well. I now need to write the travelogue, and I'm done. I will no longer have to make Atlantean digressions or summon forth spirits from the vasty deeps. But it's hard work. It's labour and toil and suffering and not a week passes when I don't think at least once, "Why am I doing this???!!!"
The thing about a PhD is that it doesn't 'come along'. It's a qualification, like any other, that says you know enough about a particular sub-area of knowledge to probably lecture anyone else about it. It says nothing about how much more competent or useful you might be. It does, however, imply that you have the 'iron backside' to work at something until it's done.
This has always been my problem. I don't have the 'iron backside' nor the 'brass spheres' to sit down and hammer at something until it's done. I need to get up and walk around, look at the problem from all angles, learn things about the things that are about the things that are about my topic, and so on.
I finished my PhD module exams about five years ago, getting an 'A' for each module. It's the dissertation, that 120,000 word monster, that is occupying about 60% of my resources! As many people will tell you, it's not the length, but the strength. I believe that when I'm done, the thesis will stand as a fairly strong and interesting one. It might even be useful. But it is agony to churn out five thousand words and then spend the next day rewriting four thousand of them.
Even at that rate, people might say, "Shouldn't your dissertation then take 120 days to write?" Heh. It doesn't quite work that way. As the length of the thing grows, its complexity also increases. In order for it to remain coherent, you need to check more things. And as you check more things, things get more complicated because of new input.
They say it should take you not more than 80 hours to do a 4000-word extended essay. That's about right. For 120,000 words you would probably need 2400 hours, with about 12 really solid productive hours a week. It will take about 200 weeks, or four years working full-time, to do a proper PhD unless you have it set up just right.
Unfortunately, not everyone gets it right from the beginning. Some of us start from scratch or from scanty foundations. This isn't always a bad thing, since you explore a lot of new ground. But it can be terrible when you find yourself out in the wasteland and wondering what on earth (or where on earth) you are, metaphorically speaking.
Right now, I sense I have reached critical mass. I have explored my tiny microcosmic space and I know it fairly well. I now need to write the travelogue, and I'm done. I will no longer have to make Atlantean digressions or summon forth spirits from the vasty deeps. But it's hard work. It's labour and toil and suffering and not a week passes when I don't think at least once, "Why am I doing this???!!!"
Labels: Education, Learning, University Life
etched with acid at 10:48:00 am
0 Comments:
Post a Comment
<< Home