Sally* is a doctoral researcher based in the UK who is in the second part of an online, part-time, structured PhD programme. Here is her story in her own words.

*Sally chose her own pseudonym.

My experience of undertaking an online PhD has been both positive and challenging. On the positive side, I really value the opportunity to work on a project that I have chosen to do and write about things I’m interested in, like secondary school teaching or sex ed teaching. I think it’s also been nice to get feedback on work and knowing that things have gone well, feeling more confident in my writing, and seeing my writing develop. I feel quite privileged to be doing this, it’s quite a self-indulgent thing to do. I’m kind of lucky to have time to work on what I’m interested in.

Negatively, it can be quite a stressful experience, especially when I’m doing lots of other things like part-time and freelance work. I’m always juggling and trying to figure out when can I have time to work on the PhD and how am I going to meet each deadline. So that definitely kind of affects my wellbeing in terms of stress levels and I’ve had kind of physical impacts of stress over the past two or three years. I’ve had times where I’ve been quite sick, like throwing up from stress. I’m figuring out how to deal with that as well because I can’t really be too unwell because if I’m not well, the work’s not going to get done, and if the work doesn’t get done, I’m not making progress or I’m not getting paid depending on what the job is. However, it’s hard to tell how much of that is the PhD and how much is the other jobs that I’m doing as well. I think sometimes it’s the work stuff that’s stressful, not the PhD possibly.

I’ve got lots of mechanisms of like planning what I’m doing. I schedule every hour on the calendar and what I’m doing in that hour. There’s lots of ways that I use technology to make things kind of easier to sort through or easier to read. However, I’m less bothered about Zoom gatherings and some irrelevant emails the university send. I also try to make time for doing things that are outside of anything that involves a thought process. For example, playing quite a lot of football or spending time with friends are things that I find helpful to not be thinking about working stuff. Technology has also been helpful in getting my work done efficiently. I also started seeing a therapist because of the stress and a doctor to see if there’s anything kind of medically wrong at the moment. I think I’m still figuring out how to balance things and what is helpful.

I feel that my friends support me a lot throughout this journey, but my partner is probably the main source of support. She’s super helpful and understanding and provides technical support as well. For example, she’ll read over things I’m writing and check that it makes sense. She is helpful in saying like, ‘You need to take a break’ or, ‘You need to take a pause from this thing.’ It’s helpful to have that voice.

My relationship with my supervisor is generally positive but not as supportive. I think a PhD, however you do it, is probably a bit of a solo task and so it definitely feels like that, and as we proceed in the programme, we need less support which makes sense because I feel more confident than I have for the last two years in what I’m trying to do. My supervisor is really nice, she’s very helpful and at the moment we just kind of schedule when each chapter is done to have a meeting and a discussion about that chapter and her feedback is helpful. It’s less of a kind of pastoral supportive kind of relationship, but I don’t really need it to be that because everyone’s so far away and it’s always on Teams that you’re talking to people, so it feels strange.

My engagement with other PhD peers is also quite limited. There’s like a WhatsApp group that everyone is in. In the first few years I felt like it was somewhere that people went to complain, so I felt a bit kind of like disheartened by the general energy. I think maybe I would have wanted that kind of support if it had been used in different ways, like actively supporting each other and reading each other’s work. I do prefer a one-to-one conversation rather than large group chats. I’m not super bothered about that though. I know a few people who’ve done PhDs, so I think they are more helpful in understanding what the process is like, rather than the group of people who I’m going through it with. I also think writing is a bit of a solo activity. Although it might be helpful to have more communication, I think when it’s all on Teams, it always feels awkward or not very real. But I don’t really feel like I’ve lost too much because I’ve got other communities through work and other social things. I think if I was doing a traditional PhD and if it was more full-time than part-time, I would definitely be more invested in making networks with people and relationships with people.

I know the university have certain kinds of support but I haven’t really looked at it because it feels like it’s for students who are on campus and 21 years old. It would probably be more Teams meetings and I don’t enjoy them. I know that I’ve chosen the online route, so I have in some ways chosen to opt out of different things that I might get if I was in person somewhere and I’ve made that choice for reasons of like where I live and the jobs that I have already. In my mind it’s kind of not the university’s responsibility to deal with my wellbeing. It’s my responsibility to kind of deal with things and manage things.

In conclusion, I think I can describe my online PhD journey as satisfying. It gives me a sense of energy and purpose, as it allows me to engage deeply with topics that matter to me. Despite the challenges, this journey made me feel more confident to kind of speak up about what I think and why I think it. I am more willing to speak up about my views and have started to pursue opportunities such as submitting academic work and applying to conferences. But still if someone was like, what do you do? I’d probably start with teacher before PhD student because it feels a bit more real or legitimate. But I think once I get through this, I will be like, this is what I did.