Academic Origins

I have realized that I haven't talked much about my PhD recently, well today is not going to be that day. But something in the last couple of weeks has made me appreciate how interconnected the people I work and have worked with are. Even this may not be that surprising given how (relatively) small academic research is compared to other areas of work such as or the City. It feels more complicated than purely chance.

Sometimes life can feel like a story, and people have lives that are seemingly uncannily linked and related. It occurred to me that similar to superheros academics have origin stories too. That moment where they decided to pursue academic research for a foreseeable period of time. For me, it is something that is the result of my hard work, choices and an unbelievably large slices of luck.

I was excited about going to University, It was the first time I was leaving home. It was scary, but my excitement was greater. Being able to do the course that I wanted was cool and learning about different areas was intriguing. My course would be four years with the third year a placement working in industry. My first year was enjoyable without being spectacular, I was a middling student, not the best but not the worst. Unfortunately by mid-way through my second year at university I was wholly underwhelmed. In my second year I moved in with the wrong people. I had become dillusioned with my course with repetitive teachings that didn't build upon the first year. Down trodden I was on the verge of leaving university altogether when fate conspired something different.

It was exam period, I was yet to find my placement year and was facing the prospect of not going on one. Then to my surprise I had received an email from one of the people I had applied to work with at the Institute of Education. I hadn't initially heard back from them but I was told that the person who had originally been offered the position was no longer committed. This was accompanied by a note that said that I had originally sent them the wrong application and if I was interested they would be interested in offering the position to me. I arranged a phone interview for in the middle of my exams and that was that. When it came to the day of the interview I was waiting for the phone call to start the interview but it never came. Unbeknownst to me, the person still had an old mobile number of mine and was unable to get through. After a rushed phone call to them on my new number I was able to do enough to convince them that I was worth considering for the position. I am seemingly never do things the easy way.

Once placement had started thing became better, I was seeing the social value in my degree. I was given a lot of faith and confidence to get on with work. I had the opportunity to go to talks and soak up the atmosphere. It was a completely different scenario to what it was like on my undergraduate course. I saw my future masters and one of my PhD supervisors talk. Both of whom further inspired me before I would even work with them. I worked with someone who would become a future collaborator with my other PhD supervisor. People who I met worked with my other masters supervisor. It is a crazy, everyone was connected in some way. It feels like the sort of situation that is actually better explained with a diagram. Something like this.

Brain Connectivity visualisation. Taken from Brainsuite.org

Upon finishing my bachelors degree, I went to do a masters at Birmingham. I enjoyed my time there and even though at times it was near unbearably stressful (doing my whole thesis in about a month). I don't regret it, as it gave me the test of whether I would be committed to get something done when I was required to do so. Having just had a week like that, I am very appreciative of this time. When applying for my PhD I sent an email to my supervisor whom I had never met without realizing how big/busy they actually are. Fortunately they said yes to my idea and after getting funding I am now up here in Newcastle.

Looking back my path to this point has been clear, not that it always felt that way at the time. Looking forward there are many things still to be done in the next couple of years and it is time to get on with this work and not focusing for too long on the past. Even though it is important to remember where it all came from.