Ph.D.

It is my pleasure to advise you that on 26 November 2007 the Dean of the relevant College has approved the award of your degree of Doctor of Philosophy. I congratulate you most warmly on this achievement.

The paperwork has finally gone through, and now I am officially a doctor!

I am am very proud of all my work over the years. Glad that I never quit, I kept on going, and it was all worthwhile in the end.

I shall come back to Australia to graduate in December 2008, but will celebrate this weekend in San Francisco, and this December on a cruise through the Southern Caribbean.

I am happy happy happy.

Often I look around at the scientists around me, at one of the best public research institutions in the nation. While one or two of them seem happy, so many of them seem stressed and anxious. What does it take to feel like a successful scientist? I see Primary Investigators that push their graduate students and post-docs past breaking point for the next Nature paper. I see researchers stay late in the lab when they have partners and children at home. I see people in tears over yet another experimental failure.

I myself feel like I am just keeping my head above water. I can see some ahead of me swimming with sure easy strokes, but so often it feels like a struggle just to get through the day. I feel like I’ve studied my whole life for this job and I’m still not good at it. Failed experiments, slow data, rejected fellowship applications. I just never feel like I’m any good at what I do. I look around me, and I don’t think that I’m the only one who feels that way.

Next month I am starting a Masters in Public Health, part-time by correspondence. One day I want to have a job that I enjoy, in which I feel competent and successful.

“The candidate should be granted the award of Doctor of Philosophy subject to corrections or revisions required by the examiners in the thesis to be made to the satisfaction of the Supervisor and the Head of Department in the copy intended for deposit with the University Library”

My first week at work was quite blurry, as I came down with a severe cold and spent a lot of time in bed. Now, though, I have completely recovered, and I am enjoying my time in the new lab. My work-mates are lovely, although I do very much miss Sarah, Amy, Fleur, Katharine, and everyone else back in Canberra.