The Challenge of Embarking on a PhD at Fifty

Embarking on a PhD in your 50s is a challenging process, not just because re-entering academia after several decades away from it is scary but also because life is very different in your 50s compared to your 20s. For me, at the beginning, the challenge was mostly about confidence, could I really do this now, at my age? Would I have the staying power, the ability to understand all that theory and the motivation to stick with it over several years? When I set out on this journey back in 2015, I couldn’t have anticipated just how challenging it would be, for such different reasons than I initially thought.

Life, family and health interventions have made mine a longer journey than anticipated as my initial plan was to finish last year. I’ve now had over 12 months of interruption across the last couple of years, with 2 major surgeries and associated illness and recovery times (I’d never even been in hospital before this).

During my fieldwork, which was time limited as I was studying activity during an election period, I was actually quite ill but had to carry on regardless. I tried hard to organise interviews, attend meetings, discussions with individuals and other observations so they were spread out and gave me time to recover, but this was not always possible, I naturally had to fit in with the timetable of others. As we got closer to the election this was particularly the case, as meetings, discussions, hustings, campaign launches, and follow up interviews all had to be attended and arranged. There were days when having done one interview I was also due to attend another meeting but just couldn’t manage it, so had to cancel. I missed out on observing and attending some discussions because it just wasn’t possible. Having said that, I am still more than pleased with the amount of access I did get to individuals, meetings and discussions and the number of interviews I was able to carry out. If I’d been well enough though I would have done more (but maybe every researcher thinks there’s more that could be done).

After the fieldwork and just as I began the analysis and initial writing up stages I underwent major surgery and had a total of 7 months off from my studies because of illness beforehand and recovery afterwards. This was a major interruption at just the wrong time, just as I was closest to all the information and my own research, I had to take a break. In the end it was worth it, as my health was much improved afterwards and I was able to concentrate on my research once more. I got back into the analysis, additional reading, and writing first drafts of the main analysis and discussion sections. I even got to the point of revisions to some of the earlier chapters and had finished writing most of the remaining chapters before I had to take another break for another operation.

I am currently resting up after knee surgery and hoping to get back to full time writing over the next few weeks. Each time I’ve had to take time out I’ve found it really hard to get back into the subject matter and to immerse myself in the detail again. Whilst it does provide an opportunity to step back, I find it difficult to re-establish my engagement with my research, particularly at the stage I am at now, which is the final writing stage. An enforced absence of a couple of months has been both liberating and frustrating. Liberating because it does provide that space you sometimes need when you are too close to what you are writing and need to step back from it all to see a clearer picture. Frustrating because I was so close to finishing when the NHS provided a quicker date for my surgery than originally anticipated (which I am grateful for), so I had to stop before I wanted to, before I’d got to the end.

But now it’s time to get back to it, to get on with the writing. I’m at the stage now where I’m mostly revising chapters rather than writing from scratch, and hopefully I am now only a few months off completion. I’m re-reading what I have written with a fresh look, checking on the latest articles in my field and tightening up some of my arguments. My challenge now is to ensure the ‘golden thread’ goes right through my writing, from beginning to end, so the story is clear and my engagement with both the theory and my original research is inextricably linked throughout.

The art of writing

The blog post that follows is a slight departure from my usual commentary on housing, policy and politics issues. It’s related to my phd work and comes from a blog I first wrote for the Bristol Doctoral College. I hope you enjoy it!

I’ve always enjoyed writing, even if I don’t always do it well. I find it a creative process, that brings to life all those thoughts and ideas, commentary and debate that whirl around in my head, but frequently have no real outlet. Writing has been a part of every job I’ve had, in different ways and for very different audiences. I’ve had to adapt and develop my own style to respond to the demands of others, and to work to other people’s deadlines that often serve to stifle my own creative process. But, nonetheless, I enjoy writing. I write for fun here on this blog and write contributions to local news websites and magazines, such as Bristol 24-7 and The Bristol Cable, and for the professional press like the Planner Magazine. All of these provide an opportunity to write about things of interest to me, sometimes related to my research but often not, where I can freely express my opinion. That’s part of the fun of writing.

Over the last couple of years I have had to get used to a different kind of writing, one that is more controlled and evidenced, that fits with particular conventions. Last year, when doing an MSc, back in the academic world for the first time in over 20 years, I had to complete formal assignments and a dissertation. This involved a form of writing that was entirely different to anything I have done in a long time. Then this year, embarking on my PhD, I have once more had to develop my style further into academia, a style change I find both challenging and rewarding. Challenging because my inclination is to keep things simple, use simple language and keep away from jargon. Rewarding because when it works and I can combine simplicity with complexity there is a real feeling of achievement.

My approach to writing is to see it as a creative output, something that occurs naturally for me in response to learning. After all, what’s the point of all that learning if you can’t share it with other people? A blank page, for me, is an opportunity to articulate and share, rather than something to be scared of. Writing is like creating a painting, there are different layers that are needed to build the picture, which on their own make little sense, but together they can evolve into something worthwhile, a masterpiece that others will enjoy. I view writing my PhD in a similar way. There are layers that I will write at different times, continuously throughout the process, that need to come together into a coherent story at the end. There’s a complexity to this writing process, in terms of debate and argument, analysis and detail. But there’s also a simplicity about it, where carefully crafted pure and simple arguments can be brought together into quite a simple story. A story that will grab the readers attention, and will slowly but surely take them through the complexity in a way that makes sense. In a way that brings them to your conclusions with a sense of understanding and agreement.

There’s lots of advice to students about how to write, much of which suggests you set yourself a daily writing target, which you then stick to no matter what. I can see why the discipline of this is important and why it must work for many people, but I’ve tried this approach and for me the writing that comes from it is stifled, boring and constrained. If I’m not in the mood to write, then forcing myself to write just doesn’t work. I’ve written assignments like that and when I go back to read them I can tell that it was forced rather than creative thoughts that made up the report or essay. The work is dull and it’s lacking in energy, even if the points made are the right ones, the style is very different. I prefer an approach that feels more creative, one that has routine, but is based on my preferences, rather than someone else’s (there’s a good discussion here on creating routine when writing, drawing on the work of Ronald Kellog).

When I first begin the process of writing something new I try to avoid the clutter and distraction of notes generated from my reading. I start with a blank page. I then try to form my thoughts on what I have read into a short discussion of key arguments, issues and themes. I do this without the clutter of referencing and acknowledging who said what and how. I do it from memory, from thoughts that occur to me from reading my notes and I do it when I am feeling creative and able to write fluidly. For me this works, most of the time! Of course, sometimes the creativity is just not there, it’s beyond my grasp, I can’t think where to start or how to structure my thoughts. I’ve come to recognise those times and instead I do something else with my time, like more reading, organising files, and literature searching. All the time continually mulling over the story I want to tell and trying to work out how I can construct it. I may also use this thinking and reflecting time to write something else, something less constrained, where I can write freely without the confines of academic convention – something like a blog maybe! Eventually, often after much reflection, I am ready to write and can go back to the writing that needs to be done.

The challenge of writing is an integral part of any PhD. The only advice I have on writing is to do what works for you, try different approaches and look back on what’s worked when you’ve written things before. But above all, enjoy it, it’s a precious opportunity to express yourself, articulate your thoughts and tell the story of your PhD for others to enjoy.

From practice to academia – a personal conundrum

This year, 2014, has been an interesting, inspiring and challenging year. It’s the year when I began the transition from manager and policy specialist in the practical world of business to enter the world of academia, as a student of policy. It’s not been an easy transition. The biggest struggle I have faced, and still do, is learning to think like an academic rather than a practitioner. My focus is still too much on identifying practical solutions and real answers to problems, on understanding things from the practitioners point of view and on reading about what’s actually going on in the world. I am beginning to realise my mistakes, but still find myself with an internal battle, between being practical and being academic. I know it’s not that clear cut, but it is how it feels sometimes!

The year started with me in the second term of an MSc in Public Policy and finished with me having completed my MSc and started out on a PhD (see my blog for Bristol University Doctoral College on PhD life). During the year I sat through 9 taught units, submitted 8 assignments (1 still to complete) and a dissertation – that’s a lot of writing, with a lot of reading to back it up! Some assignments worked better than others, some I spent a lot of time on, others less so – the marks frequently did not reflect the time spent writing them. The one consistent issue I found with my writing, which was probably highlighted most by my dissertation, was the battle I encountered every time when it came to focusing on theory. After 20 years of working in practice, focusing on issues and solutions, with theory a distant memory, I have found the relentless need to use theory as the basis of my work a real challenge. It’s just not the way I am used to thinking any more. So the conundrum for me is – can academic work be both academic and practical? In the field of public policy one would hope so, but the focus is still very much on developing or challenging theory.

If, for example, I was doing a phd on housing policy, do I need to know what is going on in the world of housing policy? Do I need to know what the different political parties are proposing, or what the latest think tank report is saying, or about the difficulties practitioners face when it comes to delivering new housing? Or, can I ignore all of that and focus entirely on theoretical developments, what other academics have written and how these models and theories can be challenged or developed further? In the academic world it appears to me that the latter is actually the norm in some disciplines, but is it right?

The obvious answer is perhaps that the theory is there to inform practice, that we need theoretical developments to help us understand what is going on in the real world. But surely that means we need to know what is actually happening in the real world as well? So the two worlds overlap and the battle begins as to where the focus really is. That’s my conundrum and challenge for 2015. In 2014 I had successes and failures with the concept – some assignments went well, whilst in others the battle was won by the practical side of my brain. As an example, I wrote my dissertation on barriers to affordable housing and found myself more interested in answering the question about what the actual barriers are and why they exist in practice, than exploring a particular area of the theory. So I used the research I did to actually answer the question, but largely without making full use of the beautifully crafted conceptual framework I developed at the beginning of the dissertation, which talked about Kingdon’s multiple streams framework coupled with central-local and local-local relations. Needless to say I didn’t quite achieve the mark I wanted and hoped for! But a valuable lesson was learnt the hard way – theory, theory, theory – the foundation of all academic work.

The challenge for me over the next year is to begin with the theory, to see theory as the foundation of my work and put the practical side of my brain into second gear for a while. Start with the reading on theories of the policy process, governance theory and housing policy, rather than political manifestos, think tank reports and actual government policy. Whilst also remembering that, for me at least, there has to be a point to my research, that it will have some purpose in the real world, as well as in the academic world – a tricky challenge indeed!!