I am almost a year into this very important phase of my life, my doctorate. Although I never underestimated the process, I also didn’t anticipate it to be quite as mentally taxing as it has been. A few weeks ago, I had an interesting conversation with my friend who is at the University of Johannesburg about her Ph.D. journey. Besides the usual struggles of lab experiments not going as planned and the piles of desk work, she expressed how pressured she has felt throughout the entire two years of her degree. I thought it was humorous because I’m going through the same situation. I feel a range of unspoken pressures among my colleagues: the pressure of excellence; the pressure of knowledge; the pressure of keeping it together; the pressure of the workload; the pressure of feeling like you know nothing but are expected to know a lot; the pressures from the feeling of imposter syndrome, and the exhaustion.

This is one of the things experienced by most Ph.D. candidates, if not all,  and can lead to serious mental breakdowns, or even dropping out. During a chat with another friend in the Free State last year, I asked him casually ‘how work has been?’. I was taken aback by his answer as he told me he decided to take a break for a year. I was surprised because I knew him to be a resilient person. He told me that he could not cope anymore and that he had spoken to his supervisor who understood and let him have the break he asked for.

While we may all be facing different difficulties and are often told we have to fight through the journey, the truth is the ending is more fulfilling than the process. I would like to give just a few coping mechanisms to use when one goes through this, these are things that have helped me so far;

Try therapy

One of my colleagues here at UKZN spoke about therapy to me and I am pleased to say I have started my sessions. Most universities offer free counseling sessions to the students and we really should make use of it. The journey can be extremely stressful, and we all need help. Going to therapy does not mean that you are weak or less of who you are. It means you recognize that you need to speak to someone, and the person might even help you cope with your stress and any mental health problems you have. People studying in the UKZN in the faculty of science can use this link https://caes-ukzn.bookem.com/?lid=https://caes-ukzn.bookem.com/?lid=.

Plan your work

I have found planning my work to be very important in being productive. When I do not plan my work, I see no progress in anything that I do. Planning helps us narrow down the goal and give it a higher chance of being executed.

Understand that you may not know everything

We sometimes put ourselves under so much pressure of being a library of knowledge and not allowing ourselves not to know. Pause, slow down, and be teachable. You do not know everything, that is the reason you are doing research. There will always be some researcher somewhere through a paper that teaches you something new with your research. That is the beauty of research, if you know everything then, there is no need to research more because then what you are doing is exhausted.

Create networks and remain teachable

We have research groups and colleagues to speak to and help us navigate our research. Yes, we should not be spoon-fed but we should sometimes put our ego aside and just ask. What may seem difficult to you might be a hurdle someone crossed and conquered. Create a network of people, ranging from those you met at conferences to those found in the corridors of your institution for such and build relationships with these people. Some people even form collaborations through this network while others even find co-supervisors. We just have to be open and receptive to be teachable.

Have an outlet

A visiting professor from the USA recently gave a talk to postgraduates in our department and spoke about having an outlet for themselves. I found it profound especially coming from a professor. We all have different interests besides our academics. Maybe during the weekend pursue those, write if you can, paint, sing, start a podcast or even join a cooking class. Find something creative and who knows, it might help you become more creative in your research.

In the end, the diamond became a valuable stone after all the high temperature and pressure otherwise it would have been a ball of carbon atoms. The journey is worth it in the end, focus on the goal but treat the process with delicacy and respect.

 Whatever you put around yourself, you will be the mirror of it. Surround yourself with things you love. Marcel Wanders

One of the most important things to do is to make friends who help you grow and who can be your support system in academia. This is particularly important to me because of how far I have come as a postgraduate student. Let us start from the beginning when I first came to know of the prospects of postgraduate study. Those of you who have been following my posts this year may recall that I told you about how I found out about postgraduate study. I was at home in Lesotho working at a call centre when one of my friends asked me if I would like to do my honours degree in UFS, Bloemfontein. At this stage I did not know what an Honours degree was or what it entailed, but I took a leap of faith because of how persistent he was. He even offered to take my application letters to the university, which he did, and I got the acceptance letter. This has shaped how I wanted to treat people, especially undergraduates. I treat them with kindness and help where I can.

Fast forward to my Masters. I had an interesting journey, where my supervisors let me be what I wanted to be… with their guidance, of course. To some people maybe it would seem like this was neglect, but I saw it as affording me the space to grow. It is through this space and freedom that I started thinking very deeply about the work I did, and made friends in a range of different departments where I knew I would need help. I made friends with people in computational chemistry, biochemistry, microbiology and other departments. My strategy was to network with people who could help where their knowledge intersected with mine.  

I succeeded in making friends, and one significant memory I have is of a post-doctoral fellow who assisted me in my application for my drugs in vitro. I was sitting in the lab one day, thinking that I had to get a distinction for my Master’s degree but I did not know how. I asked my chemistry friends and they advised me that the story I tell through my dissertation is the one that matters, combined with an excellent interpretation of my results. I then thought that this could be easy to do so I wanted more, and then someone told me to take my research further by making an application for it.

I then thought maybe my supervisors would advise me on how to do that but, as I’ve explained, we had an interesting relationship. The second hindrance was that application would be through the biochemistry lab which would need a lot of paperwork and evidence of collaborations. I was excited about the challenge and luckily the postdoctoral fellow I had befriended took me through the right procedure for the antibacterial in vitro studies and we executed them, of course with a go-ahead of my supervisors, which resulted in good results and paper from the work. Making friends in academia starts with putting ego aside and letting oneself be teachable. That is how our brains expand and how we make friends for life.

I learned from this and continually learn that being around the right people at the right time in research is very important. It should not only be about taking, but also lending a hand where you can. I have had so many referrals of job opportunities, conferences, bursaries and support from people with who we were strangers but became friends through research. I have learned many things through my graduate years and one of them is the balance of the soft skills which include relationships and the hard skills. Nothing can be done by one person, and we should continually be open-minded to meet people who will help us grow. Make friends that matter…

“Your network is your net worth.” — Porter Gale