Ph.D. Calling

          So now, you are a Ph.D. You begin to see the light that the rise in the academic ranks has offered you. Optimistic now, you feel the change. You are deemed wiser by others and have also felt it to be true. Though you may not know it, new stern hurdles may beset the road of your one-way journey. You still flounder both mentally and emotionally and realize becoming a full-fledged Ph.D. is not easy after all.

           Life after getting that degree is comparable to that of a runner. That is, paces are more tracked, longer and exacting. Spectators would seem to be seeking for more. They need the equivalent of the price they earlier paid. These spectators whom you thought were your cohorts, your mentors and adherents in the field can be the very people who would rob you off the prize. Taken by surprise, they jump on you and push you aside, thinking that you are now, an able-competitor. But then you had held on to the idea that it has never been a march towards beating others. For you, there never was a competition to be wary of. You continue your solo race.

           By the time you felt the urge for a good start, you feel different. There you are still gasping for air as you look for that pleasant niche in the faculty room, proving you are not marginal, socially insecure and unconditioned to a full-torn academic life. Your personal timidity would sometimes find you still incomplete, still an outsider from the collective culture- not knowing you need to go lower and slower in their midst.

        You thought you could gain control of the momentum of tasks and responsibilities after finishing. You dreamed that it is going to be a long-yearned hiatus after marching. But then you are wrong. Here you are called upon to mentor hopefuls and wannabes not realizing your reputation could be at stake. Criticisms are more frequent now as they judge you of your attitude rather than your hankering to help. Yours was a frustration but are remedied by the grateful ones who believed and heeded your suggestions. With them you find refuge and sense of well-being.

            PhD spells an impoverished belief and inadequate conception of academic power. That is what you have become conscious of. It has no power over people’s minds who still brush you off as just a “wannabe”. You have tried substantiating that you are more than just the title no matter how many times they put their feet on your neck. You still manage to run. Sizing has just been a culture; one newbie needs to embrace the practice of being appraised like polished metals put in the acid test.

              Being a Ph.D., you start welcoming the idea of doing more researches and publications. A thrust from the society permits you to do studies from improving pedagogies to alleviating poverty (if you may). Frankly, the demands of you passing through the course were not from the time when you were a student. It all was a PLAN. Putting those letters after your name spells deceit and for some, skepticism. You are what you have paid for but the big service awaits.

              There has been an amassing of Ph.D graduates in the last 10 years or so. The diaspora of the crawl continued to change academic ecology and the ideology of it to mean only the “certificate” and the raise in monetary compensation. It seems easier now to don the toga. Professors, whom you thought were best to use the “sieve”, have slacked off to include the coarser ones. Any one could pass. So seek to become your own PhD and believe in the adage that “Life is what you make it ”. Considering that to be true, Ph.D. will be a life-long responsibility. You are owing something to the community.

              I ask now not how does one become a PhD but what is to become ONE? There’s that big difference that is spelled with idiosyncrasy…