The series of workshops titled “Will my PhD change the world?” was originally set up as part of the pilot programme for PhD student engagement in extra-curricular activities at UAL. The first two of four themes were addressed as part of collaborative activities exploring Community Resilience and Living with Environmental Change. As we all stay at home and physical workshops have been cancelled, we take this opportunity to connect through digital media and explore the theme of Lifelong Health and Wellbeing which is more important now than ever. The current health crisis has also led to flipping the question and asking “how does the world change my PhD?”.
The question of mental health and wellbeing is essential to a successful PhD journey. Dr Sharon Cole has been looking into the specific challenges that we face as a diverse PGR student community at UAL, this written interview aims to shed light on some of these and open a discussion amongst the PhD community.
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Q&A with Dr Sharon Cole
How did you become interested in PGR health and wellbeing and what is your role at UAL in that matter?
My interest started when I began my own PhD journey many years ago and experienced the highs and lows of the life of a PhD student. My whole career has been in academia first as a researcher and then in research management. In my current role as Deputy Director of Research Management and Administration for the University my role involves ensuring we have support in place for research activity for both staff and students. I have worked with PhD students throughout my career and recognised how important good mental health and wellbeing are to a student’s success and experience. I completed an MBA recently and for my dissertation I decided to focus on PhD student wellbeing to bring an evidence base to our work supporting our students so I’m interested both from an academic and practice perspective.
In your experience what are the main challenges regarding PGR student mental health?
I think perception is a key problem. I read an article that described the PhD journey as being like an endurance race and I think many who have been through it would agree it can feel like that. However, while a PhD should be academically challenging it shouldn’t be challenging your mental wellbeing, so if this starts to happens students don’t always recognise this is not part of the journey and that they need to seek support.
Another factor is what we call first in family which refers to those students who are the first in their family to attend university, they have less understanding of the journey and no one close who has experienced it. The outcomes for this group both in terms wellbeing and achievement can be different to other students in studies on undergraduates. Most PhD students will be the first in their family to study at this level. This means they have less understanding of the journey, and those they usually rely on for support don’t understand the challenges they are facing.
A common theme in work looking at PhD student wellbeing is imposter syndrome. Students don’t feel they should really be on the programme because think they are not as experienced or knowledgeable as they believe other students to be. I think the first in family effect also plays a role here. What I would say to those students is to trust in our staff and our processes, we have a lot of experience successfully supporting students to complete their PhDs and that includes a rigorous application process. I also recommend the Ted talk by Amy Cuddy ‘Fake it until you make it’. You would be surprised how many people feel the way you do.
The Post-Grad Community pilot project for PhD students has been focussing on subject specific activities, what are your thoughts on how communities of practice contribute to PhD student’s wellbeing? Have you seen this as a challenge in an institution like UAL with such varied subjects?
We know from the literature that one of the things that supports good mental health and wellbeing in PhD students is engagement and being part of a community. This is more easily achieved in some disciplines than others. In STEM subjects for example students are often part of larger projects and need to be physically present everyday working alongside other students and researchers. For disciplines where study is more isolated and less reliant on place, initiatives like communities of practice provide a forum for students to engage with each other and not only share knowledge and practice in a specific area but to provide peer support. Research students often think that they need someone with a specific subject area to be able to give them advice and support but many of the challenges in research cross subject boundaries. Ethical issues, methodological challenges, engaging participants are just some of the areas that cross subjects, we can learn from people across a wide range of disciplines and they can often bring a new perspective.
On top of a variety of subjects, the profiles of PGR students are also extremely varied and caring responsibilities or the challenges of living far away from UAL campuses can make it difficult to engage with the community. How do you feel this challenge of balancing engagement within the community vs not overly drawing on the already scarce free time of PhD students affects their wellbeing?
I think in part it is important we help PhDs students recognise how important this engagement is for their wellbeing and how this can benefit their academic outcomes. I think engaging students in the evidence base around this can help. It’s also about being flexible, what works for one student may not work for another, we need to understand what students need and have mechanisms in place for students to provide feedback. Even before Covid-19 we had been exploring how we could provide more engagement opportunities online and were hoping to be able to share more about this soon. Having been a distance learning student myself I know that this can be a very effective way of creating a sense of community when time or geography is a barrier.
PhD student’s identity is varied and quite different from that of taught students. Reportedly, students have a better sense of meaningfulness in their work if they feel that they are considered as a junior researcher and an expert in their field rather than ‘just a student’. How do you feel extracurricular activities at UAL can support this?
Being on a PhD programme is very different to being on a taught programme, it is the part of a journey to becoming an independent researcher. It’s self-directed and autonomous learning so each student is on a unique journey and doesn’t have a cohort in the way those on taught programmes do. We are encouraged by organisations such as Vitae to consider PhD students as junior researchers, making them part of the research community, from my own experience that’s certainly how I felt. I think we can support this through initiatives which bring together staff and research students such as research season and other research events and initiatives and also in making sure students have a chance to share their work. Students have a lot to contribute to debate and discussions from both the knowledge gained from their research and their experience as practitioners in their fields. We also give students the opportunity to have a research profile on the UAL website in the same way we do for our staff so that their expertise is recognised both internally and externally. PhD students are an important part of our research community.
How do you think social distancing measures will change the way PhD students engage with community activities. We are already seeing that going online has lifted some barriers to accessing events, do you think the world has in fact changed our PhDs?
I think the world has changed how we think and approach everything and it has changed research for both experienced researchers and PhD students. The current restrictions and social distancing measure will make us find new and innovative way which not only deal with the current crisis but could address other important issues such inclusivity and climate change. As we move into the next stages of the pandemic and some of the restrictions are lifted it’s important that we don’t go back to old ways of working but find the best ways of working. There are many practices we have adopted that we would want to keep going forward. So has the worlds changed your PhDs? The answer is yes and no, it has changed the approach but not want you will achieve.
Useful links
Vitae report "Exploring wellbeing and mental health and
Doctoral students' wellbeing, a literature review (PDF 245KB)
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