Woman-to-Woman: Love Letter to Ph.D Aspirants/Candidates
Dr. Victoria Lihiru
Hey Girl Child!
Thank you for the congratulatory texts, calls, cakes, parties, flowers, coffees, luncheons, and dinners. With swag, most of your texts would read, ‘Congratulations Dr. Vee, but how did you make it at 31 years old with kids and work responsibilities’? Well, before I go into that, you will be happy to learn that I dedicated my Ph.D thesis to you! Yes, the thesis is dedicated to all girls and women from all walks of life. It is also accompanied by a note we may all be familiar with, ‘Dreams are valid.’
My friend, if one of your year 2020 or new decade’s resolutions is start or finish your Ph.D, I am here to answer the ‘how did I make it’ question. Getting a Ph.D at 31 is a great achievement, but you can get yours even earlier, between 25-30 years old. Yes, it is possible. Many people have pulled it through before. You can also get it in your 40’s, 50’s, 60’s, or 70’s.The fact is it can be done. Be cautioned that, I am not a motivational speaker – but a glimpse of my Ph.D journey may help you with a point or two as you kick-start or strive to finish you Ph.D.
Girl Child, you will have to know what pushes you to get a Ph.D. I had a strong desire to explore my research problem further with the level of detail that my LL.B or LL.M could not offer. As a young girl, I wanted to attain the highest degree the world could offer before it was too late. I was reviewing my 2008 diary, I had then resolved to do a Ph.D even if I was not going to land in academia. Inspired by a friend – Dr. Natujwa Mvungi who got her Ph.D at 28 years old, I wanted to break her record – although I was unsuccessful in that mission. I started applying for Ph.D programs when I was 23 years old, immediately after completion of my LL.M in 2013.
You may be delayed to start. In both 2013 and 2014, I was unsuccessful with scholarship applications, refuting the presumption that those with high GPAs attract scholarships easily. With my 4.2 and 5.0 LL.B and LL.M GPAs, respectively, all of my scholarship applications failed. Even the program that funded my Master’s degree, which I was heavily dependent on, couldn’t afford to grant me scholarship for Ph.D.
Darling, you may need to refuse to wait. As I couldn’t wait for a scholarship any longer, I made a decision to fund my studies on my own by any legal means. Settling with the fact that I couldn’t afford private sponsorship in Ivy League universities, I asked myself, if I will be paying fees from my hard-earned money, why shouldn’t it be in exchange for a Ph.D from the best university in Africa? With that view in mind, in 2015 I went against the principle of ‘not putting all eggs in one basket,’ by only applying for a self-sponsored Ph.D program at the University of Cape Town (UCT), in South Africa.
Hang on there, things will get a little easy. After getting admitted at UCT in 2016, things started falling into place. Fastjet was flying to South Africa with affordable ticket prices. Registering for first year of studies I paid annual fees of approximately Tanzanian Shilling 2.5 million.This was an amount I considered fair mainly due to i) The spirit of regional integration-students from the Southern African Development Community (SADC) region pay local fees in South African universities and ii) The high rate of inflation of the South African Rand in early 2016. Soon after I was fully registered as a Ph.D student, some good news arrived. I got a bursary from UCT’s Faculty of Law, which kept on financing a great deal of my studies onwards. At this moment, I cherished my previous decision for not waiting for scholarship.
Sister, you will have to choose a topic you are most familiar with. I had worked closely on the 2012-2014 Tanzania’s constitutional reform processes. I had also researched and worked on legal aspects of women political participation since the start of my career. I am a keen follower of new developments in the area of constitution-making processes and women political participation in East Africa and beyond. While waiting for possible scholarship opportunities, I spent three years pondering and reshaping the focus of my thesis. When I started writing, although my original thoughts kept on evolving, I had a clear roadmap for what I wanted to achieve with the thesis.
Bestie! Getting my Ph.D Proposal approved was the first hard part of a Ph.D journey, I had to change my research proposal to a statement of interest, then change it again to a proposal. I had to redo the literature review twice, attend to three rounds of my supervisor’s comments. The proposal had to go for English grammar check, then back to me, to the supervisor, back to me again, to the supervisor and then to the Doctoral Degree Board for their approval. This process took 6 months!
Girl Child, it is better to know the road to market early. I found it necessary to have an early understanding of the key steps towards completion of my thesis. The idea was to avoid wasting time for something that, if known earlier, would be taken care of in a timely manner or parallel with other processes. I was able to write applications for ethical clearance, obtain research permits and prepare research tools while writing my research proposal. I submitted the applications to the authorities the following day after my proposal was approved. If I had not done that, It would mean spending another month putting such applications together.
Yes, I never stopped writing, I kept writing and reworking other chapters as the supervisor was reviewing other chapters. At the beginning of my studies, my supervisor and I developed a flow of chapters, sections, and subsections that although kept changing. This helped me to always keep writing. Being an academician myself, after submission of first draft thesis for supervisor’s review, I could as well review it on my own to capture errors and streamline my thoughts and the flow. It helped the thesis to benefit, not only from the supervisor, but also from my sense of flow and complementarity of information.
Dear, your family will have to agree to miss you for sometime. With the intention to break Dr. Natujwa’s record and avoiding the pitfalls of running out of appetite to keep writing, it was difficult for me to practice a ‘ Ph.D student-wife-mother-work-life balance.’ During the three years, I was more of a student than I was a mother, daughter, sister, employee or wife. Most of the time I went to bed at 8pm and woke up at 3am, working on the thesis until 6am. I would carry my Ph.D thesis anywhere I go. My handbag was full of printed articles so I could catch up with new developments whenever I have free time. Our closet became a huge mess with papers everywhere.
Precious, your other hobbies can still co-exist with your Ph.D journey, be alert for your Ph.D not to be swallowed. In 2016, I signed up and climbed Mt Kilimanjaro all the way to Uhuru peak. In 2017, I got my second child. In 2018, I ventured to read the whole 1000 plus pages of John Maxwell Leadership Bible. I also attended a five-week professional fellowship on inclusive employment and, later in 2019, founded Her Ability Foundation (HAF) , an NGO for university girls with disabilities. But, I would do all these things after I had sufficiently worked on my thesis at each particular time.
Beloved, you will have to change how you spend time with your friends. I made use of my friends – my husband would review every chapter to check grammatical errors before the chapters goes to the supervisor. When I got tired to look at the laptop, I would call a friend ask them to type for me as I was talking through my thoughts. I asked my senior colleagues in academia and in civil society organizations for insight on comments I was getting from my supervisor.
Darling, sometimes you will need to throw your hard work in the recycle bin, based on supervisor’s comments. I had to discard big sections of the chapters, sometimes the whole chapter. Pitying my energy and time spent, I tried to use the data from the discarded sections and chapters to beef up arguments in other parts of the thesis, however, in some incidences, throwing them in the recycle bin was the only option.
Girl Child, progress is not only in writing, there is more! Sometimes my supervisor would write in the comments section, ‘I don’t hear your voice in this chapter’ or ‘this chapter is purely descriptive, there is no analysis here.’ I learnt to set time to reflect on other authors’ publications, my own thoughts and realities on the ground to shape my conclusions. I had to set time to learn and perfect other skills. Having footnotes starting at one in every page, the front page unnumbered, preliminary pages in roman numbers while other pages in normal numbers was hard, but I had to master it.
Woman, you will have to close down negativities. In any conversation, when a subject of being a ‘PhD student’ comes up, questions such as what your writing on, methodology, and key findings will come up. You will find positive people and they will give you critical feedback. You will also meet negative people purporting to know your area of study or the employed methodology more. Listen to both of them, but don’t be discouraged or get derailed by negative comments. One day I met one professor who has a number of publications in the area of my P.hD and I really thought her views would help shape my thesis, but she watered down every bit and piece of my arguments without justifying her point of view. But I chose to move forward anyway.
Girl Child, you will have to celebrate key milestones during the P.hD journey. I celebrated key milestones, such as when I was admitted, got a bursary, proposal approved, chapter by chapter finalisation and finally when a full draft was produced. I also celebrated when I was able write my abstract, rework footnotes and references, submitted a second draft to my supervisor, then submitted the thesis for external examination. I had fullness of joy when my thesis got back from external examiners, all suggesting that I should graduate after attending to minor changes. The happiest day was on 13th September 2019 when I was told, it’s done, and you will be graduating on 12th December 2019.
Ph.D Aspirants and Candidates, back up your data on Cloud to avoid starting the work all over again, make use of technological systems to ease your writing and referencing, and find a reason as simple as ‘I want to break Dr. Natujwa’s record’ to keep you motivated. The role of a supervisor cannot be underestimated, pray you get a good one, and be careful with tradeoffs you will be making in balancing between yours and supervisors’ expectations on the thesis. Some days will be difficult, allow those tears to flow, other days will be rewarding – these celebrate hard. Don’t forget your daily support system, for me prayers, daily affirmations and good coffee made the difference.
My Ph.D journey ended on a bright day on 12th December 2019. In my lavender dress, red graduation gown and black hood with gold, full citation loudly read, I was capped and conferred my Ph.D by the great Mama Graça Machel. The presence of my mother (Ruth), and my long time friend (Keritha) made the day even more immaculate. Family photos taken, phone images shared to family and friends, photo with the Vice Chancellor, coffee with my supervisor, and a sunset boat cruise plus champaige marked the end of the day I had worked for three good years. And now I have my life back, trying to compensate for what I missed.
Precious Friends, let me end here. Do keep me posted on your journey as it progresses, and know I am here if any assistance is needed!
Bye for now-Dr. Vee.
