More than a student
There’s something distinct about self-directed study. The word student bring words to mind like classes, coursework, lecturers and facilitators. All of which define a particular structure of study. Not that there are no facilitators, or guidance nor structure to the PhD process. I know from my experience over the last couple of years compared to friends in other disciplines, that I have been very lucky in the support available to me. Yet, student, does not seem to encompass the process. I could not say that I started down the path of doing a PhD with the intention of becoming a researcher. Someone who I believe, has those critical thinking skills necessary to understand themselves, the problem, the context, and their resources. I am not there yet, but I have come to learn that these are the qualities that are necessary for my own personal development. So, how do you become a student of worthwhile qualities, of traits that are intrinsic to the pursuit of a research goal? With guidance, yes. Regular meetings with a supervisor, chats with friends and other peers in similar pursuits, and sometimes with brute force and determination not to just quit the lot. Necessary also, are times of self-reflection, self-deliberation, and the conscious effort to understand what you are trying to achieve. I do not just have a research goal, I want to become someone who has a particular set of skills, traits, and still hold on to that drive and passion.
I often feel a pang of want when I hear about my friends who go away on great adventures around the globe. Those people who travel, teach English, get by somehow, learn to survive by doing what is necessary. I have immense respect for their ability to live for the moment. Sometimes I think that I should be out having those great life changing adventures. I sometimes feel like I have diminished horizons because I am singularly focused on getting through the rest of this PhD process. However, I have come to realise that I am changing. My younger need to explore my self awareness has come to fruition in this exercise. My academic career has always been about negotiation my own personal interests with the curriculum. To work out the system, become adept at using the tools that would let me solve problems, about learning all those things that are meta. I guess it should have been obvious that I would end up in this domain; personalized adaptive eLearning that draws from what, as a society, we have learned over the years about how we structure our knowledge and how we understand our own personal cognitive functions. It seems so obvious now, it’s strange to think that I would be anywhere else. I guess teaching, and attending structured courses like statistics, you might say would distract from this development. They have not. What I have learned from lecturing over the last couple of years has changed my point of view immensely. I remember my interview, absolute determination. I knew I could do it, but I didn’t know that I could learn so much. I have massive appreciation for the privilage of attending courses and workshops. To have imparted all that precious foundation knowledge. From a research point of view, the cognitive effort that is spent breaching a new topic, or new domain is immense. Now, when I attend lectures, I feel myself breathing in new knowledge each time.
This entry was posted on Wednesday, April 1st, 2009 at 3:48 pm and is filed under Uncategorized. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.
