Successfully completing a doctoral project places high demands on candidates. PhD graduates Julia Wolf and Kai Ziegner share personal insights into their lives during the final phase of their doctorates and remember what they drew strength from and what helped them grow during this time. Judith Siegmund, head of the PhD programme in «Epistemologies of Aesthetic Practices», explains why completing a PhD thesis is not about a resilience alone.
At ZHdK, around 85 doctoral students are currently pursuing an artistic, scientific or artistic-scientific PhD project — either on their own or in one of the six PhD programmes offered jointly with (inter)national universities. Julia Wolf and Kai Ziegner share their experiences of writing a PhD. Ziegner says: «It was a marathon, but I’m glad I took this path.»For nine years, he commuted between Zurich, Linz and Helsinki for his PhD but lived with his family in Berlin: «In my mid-30s that was fine, but when I was over 40 and had two small children it became a burden. In my final year, I suddenly fell ill. Shortly before Christmas, I sat down to prepare my defence and ended up writing seven versions. I experienced my first breakdown and wanted to throw everything away.» His wife advised him not to let his doctorate dominate his life. In a series of coaching sessions, Kai learned stress management techniques. He worked on personal issues with a therapist and also intensified his yoga training. «Finally, I defended my research work at Linz University of the Arts and graduated with distinction. It was absurd: for years I had worked towards this moment and then I was talking online to some small tiles on my computer screen.»
Julia Wolf has ambivalent feelings about completing a long-term project such as her dissertation. Finishing, like starting, requires courage. For her, this phase meant collecting final feedback for her book — but also leaving some of it aside. «Alongside other work commitments during the final phase of my thesis, I repeatedly had to fathom my resources — stamina, adaptability and openness — and to learn how to handle them with care. Besides my mentors, other social relationships such as my family, friends and other people who supported me were also important.» Good working conditions including having enough space at research workplaces also helped her to persevere, she says. «I was lucky to have good companions who supported me, who surprised me with confetti and with whom I could share my sorrows — but above all my joy with in the end.»
Prof. Judith Siegmund, the head of the doctoral programme in «Epistemologies of Aesthetic Practices», does not associate a doctoral project and its completion with the concept of resilience, because it is not about coping with defeat: «Pursuing a doctoral project to completion requires independent thinking and action as well as loving one’s subject. It means being determined to solve problems one has discovered oneself and to communicate one’s ideas and findings to others. That’s a positive description.» Working on a task that oneself deems urgent involves the uncertainty of whether one’s own perspective and the questions one is engaging with over a long period of time are as important as they seem to be, whether others will ever understand the problem being researched and whether there will be any recognition for one’s work. «As the process is dialogic, I don’t think it can be approached with resilience but rather with persistence, patience, diligence and doubt, with precision, commitment and openness.»