It was cold, I was fraying at the edges, overwhelmed, confused, and honestly a little rattled. Everything hit me at once like a pile of bricks in the face as I walked out of my first university class in 5 or so years. I had some catching up to do, the Honours program had officially started. I also needed some extremely heavy metal music.
But I digress, let me take you back to the start. How did I end up here? If for some reason you’re interested, you can go back through my blog posts where I share my 6 months of living and working in New Zealand, a free and roving spirit, a sabbatical if you will. Long story short, I had grown weary of working in the tourism/hospitality industry, but still very interested in the industry as a whole. Whilst in New Zealand, I’d worked as a freelance copywriter, but going further down that path was going to be a bigger struggle than I was willing to risk.
As the universe would have it, toward the tail end of my New Zealand stint, I randomly met up with my lecturer from back in university for coffee and a catch up in Dunedin. She sold me the idea of combining my interests of writing, tourism, and training into doing research. Incredibly, she offered me the chance to join her at Griffith University to do the Honours program, as a pathway toward a PhD. This took me by surprise. I’d never ever considered a doctorate degree before. As it is, being in the tourism industry, I’d had my fair share of ridicule for completing a Bachelor’s Degree. ‘Why did you spend 4 years in university to stand on the front desk or be a waiter’ etc. I let the idea sit and aerate for a couple weeks, then decided to plunge into it. I had always gravitated toward the training/mentoring/man-management parts of working in tourism, and transitioning into teaching or lecturing in university made sense. It was one of those ‘maybe someday’ things that I stored in the back of my head. But I thought - If not now, then when? If not you, then who?
I took the offer, and in a very limited amount of time, got myself to Brisbane, Australia. I knew this path would be fraught with road bumps, and as you will find out, there have been more than a few. The first of which was when Griffith University ‘lost’ my documents that I had express air-mailed to them, less than a month from which I was supposed to fly to Australia. This meant I had to make, then send them another batch (which I had to have certified all over again by my previous university). And I needed Griffith’s approval before even being able to apply for my student visa. Needless to say, I didn’t unclench until the visa got approved, hopped on a plane, and restarted my life again, this time in Brisvegas, Straya.
Semester One.
Because I had to rush through my decisions and application, I opted to stay on-campus. 1 less thing to figure out (house-hunting). My thought process was to live on-campus for a semester, find some housemates then move out. I quickly found out that there was a fundamental flaw in this plan. Almost everyone who chose to live on-campus were exchange students who were going back to their own countries after 1 semester. It was not all bad, living on-campus had several benefits. Always being just 5 minutes away from class had it’s perks. Since I’ve moved out, I have also come to appreciate not needing to find parking when being on campus. Having a gym (which we shared with the Brisbane Roar A-League team) right outside my door was also nice. The free food and activities for college residents didn’t hurt either. At the start of the next part, I’ll outline why eventually moving out was a significant improvement though.
But first, let me try to paint my first impressions of Griffith University's Nathan campus. Universities back home in Malaysia are very different. They’re usually concrete behemoths plonked in the middle of urban areas. There’s usually not much space and the architecture is utilitarian - cold and sterile. More importantly, they lack character. As we pulled into Griffith, my brain-to-mouth filter malfunctioned and I actually said out-loud to my driver ‘Holy shit, this is huge’. Nathan campus is perched on top a small mountain (Mt Gravatt I believe) and it’s a protected forest area. Immediately, I found it pretty amazing that the university and dorms were surrounded by wildlife and flora. There are hiking tracks right out of the university, and you’ll see wild turkeys, koalas, and crocodiles on campus just roaming around minding their own business. Okay, settle down mate, maybe not crocodiles but you get the idea. I settled into my flat quickly, which was shared with 7 other students, looking forward to the start of the semester.
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| This is what orientation looked like. Well, not really but you could get to this path directly from the Uni. |
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| Views from the six. I mean my room, and it wasn't room six either. |
So the semester starts, I needed to fulfil 40 credit points each semester. In semester 1, as recommended, I took all 4 compulsory courses. Qualitative Methodology, Quantitative Methodology, Research Design, and Special Topics in Honours Research. My first class would be Qualitative Methodology. I trudged my optimistic self to class and immediately was met with a reality-check slap to the face. Sat in a classroom surrounded by post-graduates in various states of their research, terms like epistemology, paradigm, interpretivism, post-modernism started being thrown around. Some of the more advanced post-grads were asking questions like, ‘Do you think an interpretivist paradigm would be suited to a mixed-method?’. I had to check if they were speaking English, because I understood nothing from that sentence. Bear in mind, I had completed and presented a thesis back when I was doing my undergrad, but this flew straight over my head. With all the courses, the lecturers constantly reminded us that, ‘If you don’t ask or share your thoughts, we cannot help you.’ Here I was thinking, I don’t even know what I don’t know. It’s like being thrown off a cliff and then being told ‘Hey, ride the fall line, watch out for crevasses, and don’t ride across that cornice. Do you have your ABS and Beacon on transmit mode?’ WHAT DO ANY OF THOSE TERMS EVEN MEAN?! Don’t get me wrong here, I was very fortunate to have incredible lecturers in all my courses. But it was definitely a case of ‘Are you talking too fast, or am I hearing too slow?’ I can't even begin to imagine what it's like for students where English is not their native tongue.
This is where the importance of building strong relationships with your peers come in. I cannot overstate the importance of having friends doing the same courses where you can bluntly discuss how stupid each of you feel out of class. That ‘I’m not the only one’ feeling is incredibly important for staying motivated. Again, I was extremely lucky to have peers who were on the same exact path and wavelength. Needless to say, we were pretty much joined at the hip in trying to stumble through the semester in one piece. I feel like this is an integral part of surviving the honours. Having someone to share your mental breakdowns with who knows exactly what you’re talking about. If you call your parents and say stuff like ‘I think I’m going to use the black swans analogy to address falsification in my case-study justification and limitations.’ I’m fairly sure they will either hang up or fall asleep mid-sentence.
My second road bump appeared relatively early in the semester. About a month into the program, on a routine Skype with my parents, I was told that my mother had been admitted to hospital. She had difficulty breathing and the tests found that she had been diagnosed with stage 4 ovarian cancer. Now, friends who know me well enough have described me as ‘emotionless’ or ‘calm’. For better or worse, I often keep my feelings and emotions in check and do the rational thing. The constant overload of information from the courses combined with being away from home though, completely broke me. I was a complete mess for at least a week, breaking down at night when I was alone, contemplating the what-ifs and battling the guilt of not being at home to support my family. My dad, brother, extended family, supervisor, and close friends from back home were amazing in checking up on me and reassuring me to take things 1 step at a time. I have all of them to thank for getting me through the past year. My mom, through her chemotherapy, also constantly assured me that it would not make a difference if I gave up the honours and went home, and that she would like to see me complete what I’d started. At a bigger level, this was a huge source of motivation through-out the year. If she was strong enough to fight the cancer, I would be strong enough to crush the honours. Very quickly, this drove me to stay laser-focused as I wanted to make sure none of the time I spent was wasted.
Taking things 1 step at a time was an important technique in completing the Honours. My mantra, unhealthy as it was, was ‘There is no plan B’ and ‘Failure is not an option’. To do the PhD, I needed a scholarship. To get the scholarship, I needed first class honours and an academic CV that would put me ahead of the other applicants. This meant, in addition to my Honours Dissertation, I had to have at least 1 peer-reviewed publication and shown an apt for the rigours of academia, whether that was through being a research assistant, tutoring, and so on. If you don’t just focus on the immediate task at hand, that pressure quickly becomes suffocating. The thought that constantly ran through my head was ‘If I don’t get the scholarship, I’ve effectively wasted a year, and a lot of money, doing the Honours here in Australia, whilst being away from mom who’s battling cancer’. The consensus was that doing the PhD program at home in Malaysia would not suit my lifestyle and I would feel stifled. Deep down, I also felt like going home with my tail tucked between my legs would be a failure.
This unhealthy habit of overthinking everything is one that runs through-out the research industry, in my opinion. When you think about research, and what the day-to-day tasks are, you’d be forgiven for picturing a bunch of bespectacled tweed-jacket wearing folks sat in think tanks discussing important topics, or with lab coats on, developing the next big thing. Yes, there are aspects of it that resemble some of that (I do not wear tweed coats btw), but a large part of it is spent in isolation. I spent countless hours staring at walls, lying on my bed staring at the ceiling, muttering to myself, second-guessing my opinions and thoughts. It’s like a vignette effect focusing on your thoughts and tuning out the outside world. With most of the discussions, it’s through barely coherent emails or texts back and forth, hashing out ideas with increasing aloofness. My default pose most of the time was hunched over a notepad or laptop, headphones on blaring to tune out everything else, burrowing deeper and deeper down the rabbit hole of whatever I was trying to figure out. I guess the point I’m trying to get to is, you need activities outside of your research to give your brain a break. Reconnect with the world and reset every now and again.
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| A wall. |
Whether it was subconsciously or not, I picked this up early and started to set aside time for these ‘resets’. The Griffith Mates hosted and organised a myriad of activities which students could partake in for free. I signed up for as many as I could, within my time constraints. Keep in mind, I was also working as a research assistant and doing some freelance copywriting alongside my actual studies (contrary to popular belief, instant noodles as a sole source of nutrients is not the best idea). Guided tours of the city, cultural nights, networking nights, free movies etc. These were all great and meeting new people was always good, especially because most of the time, the others who showed up were also international students and I got to mingle around all these different cultural viewpoints and quirks. My main go-to though, was joining the Mt Gravatt Environmental Group. Every other Saturday, I spent a couple hours up in the mountain clearing lantana, planting trees, and so on, having conversations which had absolutely nothing to do with university or the Honours. It was a fantastic way to disconnect from the research world.
The other big event was the Queensland Tourism Awards, in which I was selected to be a student judge. You know those gold, silver, or bronze rating stickers you see in hotels or restaurants? Every year, industry experts gather to judge submissions by these hospitality establishments and hand out awards for the best hotels, restaurants, eco-retreats, attractions, etc. Being part of this process was really eye-opening and we spent 6 full days of judging. Being invited to the fancy Awards Gala dinner probably didn’t hurt either. If you get the chance, I recommend applying for this. It’s good fun, looks good on the CV, and you also get fed daily. And let’s be honest, which student is going to say no to free food and unlimited free coffee?
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| Mt. Gravatt Environmental Group. |
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| Gala Dinner. |
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| Griffith University contingent at the Queensland Tourism Awards 2016. |
Back to the 4 courses in semester 1, having each course broken down into 3 assignments each was great. I was honestly amazed at how much I progressed as the semester barrelled on. I know earlier on I said speaking up and asking during the classes was daunting, but the support given to me by every single academic I asked was invaluable. I’d start emailing lecturers questions about trivial details and getting in-depth answers; eventually building a rapport with all the lecturers and being able to just chat about random stuff. In fact, I was able to put one of my lecturers down as a referee in my CV, and he was happy to vouch for me. Even just looking back at the state and direction my thoughts were in at the start of semester 1, compared to the end, they’re nothing alike. It's such a cliche saying, but if you treat it like the journey is more important than the end, I truly believe you'll get a lot more out of the courses. The countless reiterations of my focus, approach, and even the core topic of my dissertation moulded and shaped it to what it was in semester 2. We were extremely lucky to have the lecturers that we did, and that is not lost on me. As this chapter, and semester 1 drew to a close, I was buoyed and relieved to find out that my efforts paid off. I somehow managed to score first class in all 4 courses and finished the semester with a perfect GPA of 7.0. To my surprise, I also somehow was awarded the top scoring student for 2 out of the 4 courses. But this was only the beginning. Semester 1 was setting the foundation to begin writing the dissertation, a whole other basket of eggs.
If somehow you’ve read this entire post, stay tuned for Chapter 2, where I share my experience with actually ‘doing’ the research, writing the dissertation, and applying for the PhD scholarship. When I originally began writing this, I intended for it to be 1 short post with the entire experience summed up. Unfortunately, I’ve rambled on and I’m doing this more for myself. Like a time machine for my thoughts. If any of this has helped you, or you want to ask me any questions in further detail, please do not hesitate to get in touch and I’ll be more than happy to give you my 2 cents. I will also eventually write up a more concise ‘tips and tricks’ for the Honours program style thing.
Disclaimer: This entire post is very contextual and you should not generalise anything from here. Everything you've read is from my own personal experience and results will probably differ from individual to individual.
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