Posted on by Mbuyi Shadrack

A week off…

So, I have to do analysis for pesticides and heavy metal analysis in water for my Master’s project. Unfortunately, we don’t have the equipment for that in our lab: I had to find a lab that does. Luckily enough, I discovered the University of Johannesburg’s Department

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The Analytical & Environmental Chemistry laboratory, UJ.

of Applied Chemistry, which heads up the Analytical & Environmental Chemistry Research laboratory. This research visit was truly a week off from my very typical and everyday academic life.

On my first day I joined the members of the research group in their preparatory presentations for an upcoming seminar. I always thought my research was isolated from the realm of the truth and practicality. Listening and watching different students at Masters and PhD level presenting their research on wastewater was really an awakening for me. If I wasn’t certain before, now I am sure that ecotox could become my life! A couple of studies caught my attention but I don’t want to give too much away…

 

One student was synthesizing a nano-composite to adsorb lead in the acid mine drainage. Another studied the desalination of seawater using a specific nano-composite, while somebody else tried to work out how to remove personal care products from water. As the students were presenting this work, in my mind I kept asking myself why I didn’t know about this stuff sooner. On the other hand, I was grateful I experienced this at this level of my study when I am still trying to find what I want to do for my next postgraduate program.

The second day was lab work. From learning to dilute concentrations and processes of preparing analysis reagents, it was a roller-coaster. I felt like a sponge – a rather happy sponge! The processes weren’t necessarily easy but it all just clicked. In a chemistry lab of all places! Without any further elaboration, let me just say I felt at home.

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Me, doing pesticide extraction using the solid-phase extraction method

One thing that stood out for me, apart from working with the amazing Prof Nomngongo and her students, was that the experience was the culmination of what I’ve been saying from the start. Through collaboration, interdisciplinarity and open-mindedness in research… this is how we build our research capacity in Africa. This is how we make science fun.

Posted on by mamothena

Reflections from the liminal stage

I am typing this sitting among a pile of boxes and rubbish, as I prepare to move to another house. Life is changing yet again, and I have to find time to keep doing the important things – such as, meeting my deadline for this blog. Try moving in the middle of the week and still have to coordinate getting the kids to school, making sure their uniform is ironed and lunch made. This morning I had mini panic attack thinking I packed my youngest’s school bag in with one of the sealed boxes. It’s crazy!

I am hoping that someday soon I can have a house of my own that I will never need to move away from. We all dream of this stable future devoid of inconveniences. It is perhaps how we assume that things will be, once we finish our PhDs. But I have a sneaky suspicion that maybe things won’t change after all. Maybe it will even get worse, considering how stressed-out academics are always saying they are? Being on the doorstep of change, as I am, is anxiety inducing. Not a student and not yet a scholar/academic. This is what Abram and Ibrahim (2012) say about the liminal stage that is PhD candidacy, ““The PhD journey, like foreign travel, involves the exploration of unknown territories and encounters with unfamiliar cultures. The experience is as much emotional as cognitive, and aspects of the journey may be exhilarating, frightening, puzzling, stimulating, exhausting or tedious.” I find that this description fits being a parent to little kids as well. And I am doing both at the moment. Wouldn’t it be nice to try and figure out only one critical thing at a time? 🙂

I am at the end of my third year. Thank God that there haven’t been any catastrophic events with my PhD studies so far. I’ve had challenges, but none of the horror stories you sometimes read about on the internet. In the coming year I have to be dynamic and pragmatic, as things haven’t always turned out as planned. (Both in my personal and academic life.) And because I have to start looking towards the future, that means I have to spare time to build my skills and look for possible employment. No more selfishly dedicating all of my time to my studies, and the occasional conference or supervision of Masters’ students.

I’m just a little bit stressed! How will I balance analysis, writing up, and engaging in work opportunities? I am looking beyond the exhilaration of the past three years, when I gained new skills, learned new methodologies, articulated brand new concepts. I am leveraging the sense of growth I feel to weather the frightening experiences, such as financial insecurities (with a family to feed!). I also use that sense of growth to weather the fatigue of doing nothing but study in the past three years. The exhaustion that comes with having to run the last mile. I do feel that there is something exciting on the horizon but I know that it will probably be more difficult before it gets easy. Hopefully I have laid a good foundation in the past three years.

My PhD experience has been the quintessential rite of passage, where “the individual [is] neither one thing nor another, but betwixt and between. …In managing the peaks and troughs of research, many students battle with moments of fear, inferiority, darkness and invisibility. They not only deal with emotional challenges, stressful situations, confusion, lack of moral, theoretical and methodological support, but they also juggle with too many responsibilities, identity crises and demands, either from their families, their institutions or their sponsors.” But there are many good days. Lots of achievements and milestones on the way. Right now I am feeling hopeful and calm regarding my PhD, and I wish I could wrap this feeling up for some of the tougher days. Of course if I come out the other end feeling as I feel now, I will 100% recommend a PhD to all my friends. 😉