The 20:40 Virgin Pendolino Service from London Euston to Wolverhampton left the station in perfect time. Heavy clouds filtered the dim light of the fading day. The convoy proceeded at a sluggish pace for a while. After about twenty minutes a voice from the loud speakers informed the passengers that there was a delay. A wooden step ladder, so the voice said, touched the overhead wires along the railway. A couple of passengers frowned. Presently a new message announced that the obstacle had been removed, and the train gathered speed. I got pen and paper from my pocket. Then paused thoughtfully. The landscape was running fast outside the window.
It must be roughly a thousand days since I moved to England. A field scattered with white sheep went past at a ridiculous speed. A power line ran along the railway, the cables oscillating obsessively up and down as the train went. I stared back at my notebook. More than a thousand days had passed since I started this strange affair, which some refer to as “Ph.D.”. Birmingham, and its homonymous university, had become my home, where now I was returning after a five-day conference in London. I recalled those days when I started. Now, whether I liked or not, I had no much choice but to go on with this adventure. I am a student, technically. For the city council I mean: I do not pay income taxes, nor the council tax. Practically, I work. I have been a student for long enough, first as an undergraduate, then as a master student. Now I am well paid as a teaching assistant. I don’t take exams, and I’m autonomous in my research. I found all that at Birmingham, and so moved here.
A thousand days later, immersed in the academic world, I still felt uncertain about a great number of things, I felt like I was still to disclose the core of my Ph.D, as if the very secret of it was still far from my reach. I was pursuing something, an idea, a concept hidden under the fancy three-letter word “Ph.D.”.
I have just been at the Exmouth Arms, and I had to rush out at half eight, knocking a chair down not to miss my train. I got at the station with not a spare minute, and as soon I jumped on the train, the doors closed behind me. It is something that excites me, that of boarding a train with less than ten seconds before the doors close. It gives me feeling of time and synchrony with the world. In reality, it had simply been hard to leave colleagues and friends at the pub. I had been absorbed in conversation, brandishing glasses of ales and feeling strong about papers, scientists, conferences and life in general.
The Exmouth Arms near Euston Station
The conversation then expanded on more general topics, and soon the whole world and human nature were the subjects of our debate. This is a common way to end my conferences. I was slightly excited—a thing that can happen when not sleeping much–but that’s not why I felt in the need of being assertive, compelled to state my ideas. Often, I believe, is my nameless job than pushes me to declare my doings. The fact that my official occupation is much unclear maybe creates the need to identify myself with something more specific, like an idea or belief. It is true that, when asked what I do, I am inevitably in trouble
‘I’m doing a Ph.D.’, I say when I’m introduced to someone.
‘Oh, ahh’, is a frequent answer to my declaration. Then, after a pregnant silence, ‘ A… Ph.D., ehm… right, what kind? I mean… in what?’.
‘Well’, I start, and then immediately stop. ‘It’s about… it’s a bit difficult to say, something in between… this field and that field, you know…’.
‘Oh ah’, is often a second eloquent comment, sometimes followed by, ‘Interesting.’. Some approving nods might follow. But no one in the audience seems very convinced. Am I studying? Am I working? What sort of things do I really do? Do I know really know? Someone may venture to say, ‘I have a friend who does something similar, I guess, just not exactly, I’m not quite sure…, I suppose it’s quite different actually, down in Sussex, anyway.’ No doubt, the general feeling is that of being at a loss. Suddenly the solid ground of small talk vanishes. The weather, and other lesser topics don’t seem quite a high enough matter for discussion. With my declaration, I had decided to step out of the real world and set myself on the unfathomable plinth of the Ph.D. institution.
Sometimes I wish I could say I’m a lawyer, I’m a physician, or anything else that describes a profession. It happened once, while out one evening with my friend Ben, that we asked some random people to guess our jobs. No one got close, but someone suggested my friend Ben could be an hairdresser. I roared and roared with laughter for a long time, while Ben actually got cross. He then dropped any regional accent, and now speaking in a high register, endeavoured to explain that we were actually scientists. Those people wouldn’t believe a bit of it, especially after I produced the membership card of the public library as a possible proof. When I think back of that episode, I cannot help but see the irony in it, as we struggled to be something, we weren’t hair dressers, but we weren’t scientists either.
In short, people do not understand because we do not know ourselves what we really do. If I knew well, I would just explain it an few well chosen words, make everyone satisfied, and pass on to the next topic without wasting time. “If there is anything unclear, gentlemen”, I would say addressing a group of average Joes in pub, “please do not hesitate to ask questions.”. On the contrary, given my confusion, I cast confusion on everyone else too. I am not sure what skills I am acquiring, if any at all. I don’t know what my duties are. I don’t know how my thesis will look like, nor precisely how I will go about to write it. I don’t know when I will finish, if I will finish one day, and I don’t know what will come after. Some of my colleagues ahead of me have given up the idea of explaining what they do. I suspect that some of them might not even be doing much, after all.
Yet, I do not believe that the meaning of a Ph.D is diminished by the difficulty in describing it. It could be as well the opposite. Recalling many pub conversations, hard-working weeks, frustration and achievements, I feel that a Ph.D. is not all about confusion and vagueness. I see principles and ideals lurking around it. It is perhaps difficult to follow principles, I admit that, and not everyone sees and likes the same principles. Still, one should not consider principles and ideas as pure twaddle, frivolous baloney that anyone with common sense should be be aware of. On the contrary, I give much importance to the ideals I perceive behind my work. Reality might never be like the ideal model one wants to follow, but if one can see where to go, where to aim and strive, one can at least push hard in that direction.
Presently the train came to halt for no apparent reason. Dusk had been replaced by a thick moon-less night. I looked out of the window, but all I could see was the foliage of a nearby tree and the reflection of my face on the window. A drop of water trickled down outside the window. I followed its irregular path until it disappeared on the edge. I had been musing over those Ph.D. issues and lost track of time, I had no idea where I was, nor how how long it was to go. I looked at the notes I had taken so far. The paper was full of small boxes and circles, and arrows connecting them into an intricate network. At the top of the page there was a title, “Ph.D. – What?”, followed by scattered clusters of writing:?“aspirations, goals, working patterns, life style, freedom, flexibility and drawbacks, conferences, private life and work, money, success, future, who… “
If one works well enough, I reckon, in the end he or she is awarded a Ph.D. And in practice? Who does one become in the end? Certainly one is four or five years older, but what else?
