It has been almost exactly 1520 days since I registered as a PhD student without a research proposal. I never planned to do a PhD, as I made my family promise me that they would not allow me to do a PhD after my Master's degree. I really did not like the critical feedback on writing, and academia was not necessarily the place that I wanted to spend my life; or let me say, I was not very confident in my own work and the feedback felt like critique of me rather than my work. This has always been a problem for me, as my writing felt like parts of me, so when someone critiques my work, they critique me.
But then I received an email that changed the course of everything...
It was a normal email, the lecturer wanted me to be a teacher's assistant as I was one for a couple of years. But they did not know that I could not be a research assistant because I was no longer registered as a student.
And then it all started.
First of all, I was a late register, as the date of registration already passed. I was not planning on registering, so why did I need to be on the lookout for the date? But because the Head of Department at that time could pull some strings, I was registered as a PhD candidate without a research proposal.
Second, I needed to write my research proposal at record pace, because you only have about 8 months to write it. But because I was late already, I had only about 4-5 months to write my proposal. This was a tough ask.
The task at hand was not that hard, it was only about 2000-3000 words, half an article. But you need to convince four external markers that your work is novel enough to warrant a PhD, so four months is not a lot of time to find a whole PhD study.
But lucky for me, I fell right into a whole PhD study without even trying.
I read a book on counselling psychology in South Africa from a decolonial scholar. And I knew, this was exactly what I wanted to do.
I organised a meeting with my main supervisor and her first words to me was: Okay, convince me of your proposed study, and why would I be your supervisor. It was less than 30 minutes, and she loved the idea, she felt that there was a whole PhD in the idea, and then the rest was history.
***
Throughout the four years, so many things happened.
I met my now fiance, we fell in love, and we got engaged.
I published my first article (and then the second, third...)
I presented at my first conference (and then the second, third...)
I received a contract (not permanent) to teach (and then the second...)
Then a couple of other things happened which I am not allowed to talk about yet...
And then, on the 8th of July 2025, a whole 1520 days after 10 May 2021, I finally submitted the 260 page document that contained everything that I did in the last 4 years.
Countless meetings with my supervisors, countless documents sent and received with comments almost as long as my PhD. The amount of days that I wanted to throw in the towel are too much to count on my hand... Fights that I had with my fiance where I felt like I lost almost all hope. But where she helped me get through it. My parents, my fiance's parents, the kind words that they all spoke about my work and the project... And somehow I got here, after four years of readings so much that I felt like I was a professional reader...
In the last two weeks, I read through my PhD about 4 or 5 times. The last three days, I read through my PhD twice. I almost know where every sentence is.
Yet I still feel like I know nothing (think Socrates who professed to know nothing). The more I read, the more I wrote, the less I felt like I was going anywhere. I felt like I had more questions than answers.
But here we are. I finally managed to submit it (even if a little bit later than I planned to).
And honestly, I am not sure how I feel about it... Having been busy with this project for so long, it felt like who I was, but now it is done (for the moment at least).
It is a strange freedom.
For now, I can breathe a bit.
All of the writings are my own, albeit inspired by my very tired mind. The photographs are also my own, taken with my Nikon D300.
