Doing Ph.D - I am not alone; You are not alone

I have just begun my doctoral pursuit at the end of December last year...and now 3 months into the programme, I feel I am nothing. I am but an empty vessel. In education, they say no student is an empty vessel, but not this student! Whatever knowledge I have accumulated over the years seemed to have left me the moment I signed up for Ph.D - Permanent Head Damage, that's what people say it is an abbreviation for. I never thought I would fall into this 'damaged head' category but here I am, feeling precisely that.

But here's the thing. Apparently it is normal. You will feel like an empty vessel at the beginning, grasping for straws, putting them together to form a theoretical framework, then a conceptual framework. You don't know if you are doing anything right. And by the time you are doing your analysis, you look at the result and you think your work is rubbish or too simple, and depression sets in. This is not for the faint-hearted.

That is the process. If I think I am struggling, there are many more like me thinking the same thing. So I am not alone, and neither are you. Just reach out and talk to someone else who is also doing Ph.D or who has journeyed down that road, you will feel better.