Article A13.1 Initiation of My Doctoral Journey: Anxieties and Expectations Chinmoy Bandyopadhyay Doctoral Scholar, Xavier University, Bhubaneswar, India chinmoy[at]stu.ximb.ac.in Suggested Citation: Bandyopadhyay, C. (2016). Initiation of my doctoral journey: Anxieties and expectations. Research World, 13, Article A13.1. Retrieved from http://www1.ximb.ac.in/RW.nsf/pages/A13.1 This note presents my anxieties and expectations upon joining a doctoral programme. Here I have tried to narrate my experiences, thoughts, and feelings during the initial phase of my doctoral journey. 1. Reasons Behind Joining a Doctoral Programme I joined the PhD programme at Xavier University, Bhubaneswar, India in July 2015. The purpose behind joining this programme was to build on my ideas and to test those in a real-life setting with scientific reasoning. I had my first experience of doing social research during my postgraduate studies in rural management (2011-2013). I had three internship projects during this period (each of two and a half months’ duration), which involved small-scale research projects. From this experience, I learnt that doing research demands exploration, creativity, and mastery of scientific reasoning. Prior to this, in 2010, I was in a team that designed and developed an electronic machine (undergraduate final-year project). The aim was to achieve some bare minimum functionality. Though the project was a replication of previous work, there was still an element of exploration and creativity. It took us a number of attempts to reach a functioning model. Looking back, I have 18 years of education followed by 2 years of professional life. With growing maturity over the years, I seem to enjoy observing phenomena and processing my observations to recognise patterns, relationships, and processes. Even though I would not always reach a definitive conclusion, I seem to draw satisfaction from exercising my mind in this way. During my postgraduate studies, I had a chance to study a number of socially relevant issues, but those studies were often limited by time and therefore lacked thoroughness. After my postgraduate studies, I worked in the rural development management sector. I was involved in activities such as liaising with funding agencies, assisting in programme planning and management, preparing documentation (i.e., project proposals, monthly reports, back to office reports, post-event reports, etc.), and designing and delivering training programmes. I have tried to bring distinctiveness and innovation to these activities, to make the seemingly routine tasks more meaningful to me. At one point, I was extensively associated with training of various stakeholders involved in the rural development management sector. This made me aware of the need to stay updated and informed, while increasing my intellectual capacity. I think I am more inclined to pursue a research and teaching oriented career in the rural development management field. Acquiring a research qualification would serve as a foundation for my future role as a researcher and academic practitioner. 2. Anxieties and Expectations Joining the PhD programme was like stepping into an unknown territory. My feelings were a mixed bag of questions and anxieties, compensated to some extent by the excitement of being a part of academia. The desire to achieve something exemplary was strong, although I was aware that there will be compromises along the way. Besides, as a researcher develops and matures gradually, and the research field keeps changing with time, there can be no fixed definition of what constitutes an exemplary achievement. In this regard, I agree with Agrawal, who puts forward the view that a research journey is not an easy one. He compared the process with “sailing on a sea.” According to him, it takes time to “understand the general features and the undercurrents” (Agrawal, 2009). The initial days of a doctoral programme are also about excitement, motivation, and expectations. The real emotional turbulence started to manifest with time. This includes the feeling of loneliness, loss of motivation, and a growing sense of uncertainty. In those initial days, I felt a need for remaining emotionally balanced and composed. It takes patience to deal with such difficult situations. Appreciation and understanding about the requirements of a doctoral programme may help to some extent. Doctoral students before me have highlighted the importance of avoiding cognitive dissonance: “Integration of one’s thoughts, expressions, and behaviour facilitates intellectual work. The lack of such integration creates cognitive dissonance” (Sindhi & Dash, 2008, reporting on the doctoral journey of M. Singhal). From the time I started discussing the idea of pursuing a doctoral programme, people cautioned me about the fact that it is a painful, long, and lonely journey. But what I observed in my initial few months of the journey is that, at my institution, it is hard for a doctoral scholar to work in isolation. One only needs to acquaint oneself well with the ecology/community that has grown around the doctoral programme. I tried to understand the rules and regulations of the programme and the expectations from a management scholar. At my institution, a doctoral scholar is expected to work towards publications in reputed journals and make other academic contributions. I committed myself to meeting these expectations. The idea that a doctoral student ought to be mindful of the institutional expectations and develop strategies to fulfill those is also echoed by Vakkayil, an alumnus of the same programme in which I am enrolled:
Another example is my initial tendency of not sharing ideas and progress with others. May be it is due to a fear of being ridiculed or a sense of competition that was behind this secretiveness. In the process, I was keeping myself away from developing a network of peers. I realised that I was missing out on having learning partners. My attitude changed when I read about how other doctoral students are learning: “we have found that doctoral students are learning within multiple communities of practice, and peers are important ‘learning partners’ within these communities” (Flores-Scott & Nerad, 2012, p. 81). I did not feel uprooted as I set out on my research journey. Although I took a break from my professional work, doing a PhD seemed like yet another mainstream job. The problem that I faced was more in adapting to the demands of a doctoral programme. I was not exposed to scientific or academic writing during my prior education in engineering and management. During my professional career, I was associated with a lot of documentation. However, I realised that scholarly writing is completely different from the process documentation that I used to do. It demands a lot of effort to master the craft of academic writing, such as maintaining objectivity, formality, and precision. The influence of my practitioner self was very much there in me in the sense that I had the nagging habit of looking for practical relevance in each piece of work I encountered. As I got exposed to a diverse range of research papers and became a bit more aware and realistic about the process of research, I started to understand that theoretical contributions are as important as practical contributions (i.e., that improve observations, communications, or actions in practical domains). I have started this research journey without a clear end in mind. I am aware that a researcher’s journey never ends. Therefore, I am prepared to adopt a flexible mindset to facilitate self-development and self-correction along the way. References Agrawal, A. (2009). Research is like sailing on a sea. Research World, 6, Article A6.2. Retrieved from http://www1.ximb.ac.in/RW.nsf/pages/A6.2 Flores-Scott, E. M., & Nerad, M. (2012). Peers in doctoral education: Unrecognized learning partners. New Directions for Higher Education, 2012(157), 73-83. Retrieved from http://onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/10.1002/he.v2012.157/issuetoc Sindhi, S., & Dash, D. P. (2008). The road less taken: The trials and travails of a doctoral journey [Report on a seminar led by M. Singhal]. Research World, 5, Article R5.12. Retrieved from http://www1.ximb.ac.in/RW.nsf/pages/R5.12 Sindhi, S., Verma, S., Kuruvilla, C. D., Menon, A. G., & Vakkayil, J. D. (2008). On entering doctoral research [Report on a seminar led by J. D. Vakkayil]. Research World, 5, Article R5.2. Retrieved from http://www1.ximb.ac.in/RW.nsf/pages/R5.2 Published Online: May 15, 2016 Copyleft Xavier Institute of Management, Xavier Square, Bhubaneswar 751013, India Research World (ISSN 0974-2379) http://www1.ximb.ac.in/RW.nsf/pages/Home | ||
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