Along the pathway to my PhD I have engaged in regular reflection for many years, initially for my own benefit, but as my confidence grew I reflected on and blogged about topics that might help others on their own pathways. WordPress tells me that to date I have published 91 blog posts and as I search and browse some of them for today’s purpose I am happy that I have this personal record of my journey.
Today’s reflection has a specific purpose that I hope will become clearer by the end of this post.
In July 2019 I set up weekly synchronous meetings on Tuesday mornings (and Wednesday evenings for a period to cater for more timezones, initially for cohort peers to chat about our module work, challenges of PhD life and all that comes with it. The format served its purpose for a time and I remain in regular touch with one of my peers sharing our experiences of teaching life (you know who you are!). However, it soon became clear that finding my ‘tribe’ was not a straightforward process.
Fast forward to March 2020, now in the second year of my structured PhD programme, researching and writing module papers, wondering if any might be worthy of further development for publication. Our second in-person residential moved online (remember those days?) so there was no opportunity to renew face-to-face acquaintance with cohort peers. At our first residential in March 2019, not only did I meet cohort peers and faculty, there was also an opportunity to meet some of the cohort ahead of us, then in their second year. This opportunity was replicated online the following year with a faculty member (thank you Julie-Anne), responding to a request from some of Cohort 13 to meet Cohort 12. From the moment of that first informal online meeting I had a good feeling, and extended the existing open invitation to my weekly Tuesday morning online get-togethers.
In the months that followed, some folk dropped in and out from time to time and were always welcome. For a core group, the weekly hour on Tuesdays was carved into our calendars and we rarely missed it, despite it being at less than ideal times for some, owing to our timezones. A particular challenge was the change from summer to winter time and vice versa that does not take place worldwide, but we managed. We chatted about our module work, shared experiences and information and most importantly provided support to each other. We celebrated successes of module results and empathised when our efforts did not appear to be rewarded. We commiserated over journal rejections of our manuscripts and shared excitement for those that were accepted for publication. Over time, our group tightened its boundaries, created a new Microsoft Teams channel for the Tuesday get-togethers and an asynchronous Discord channel for everything and anything outside of the weekly hour. We laughed over ‘transcription-fails’ with brilliant examples of what our interview participants did not say, we had our ‘off-topic’ channel to share photos and fun stuff, it was not always about research, research, research. Thanks to Satchie we have a new channel in Discord called ‘accountability-goals’ where we share any goals we might have ‘related to our post-phd lives e.g. publishing, grant writing, proposal submissions, job applications, research plans etc.’
When I think of our little community and all the peer support I have benefitted from over the years, I liken it to the late John Field’s description of the types of social capital that relate to lifelong learning, namely bonding, bridging and linking social capital (2005, p. 34):
Bonding – dense but bounded networks, homogeneity of membership, high levels of reciprocity and trust, exclusion of outsiders.
Bridging – loose and open-ended networks, heterogeneity of membership, shared norms and common goals, levels of trust and reciprocity may be more limited.
Linking – loose and open-ended networks, variety of membership, shared norms and common goals, levels of trust and reciprocity may be circumscribed by competing demands.
I can safely say that what started out as a social capital linking effort, we have graduated to a fully bonded group and plan to continue our journey of lifelong learning, in an informal capacity now that our formal PhD work is done.
So, what is the purpose of this reflection? Well, now that we have all started out on post-PhD life, there is no excuse not to write a paper on the topic of our experience, both individual and collective. Watch out for Part 2 of this blog post coming soon…
Until next time, Sandra
Featured image courtesy of Bitmoji
Reference:
Field, J. (2005). Social capital and lifelong learning. Bristol: Policy Press. https://doi.org/10.46692/9781847421265
Sandra Flynn 