Today I submitted a draft of my whole thesis. Technically I think I should feel no different, at the end of the day, I’ve still got 80k worth of editing to do, some structural changes to chapters, and making it consistent all the way through. In this sense, today is no different to yesterday, I’ve still got work to do to finish it.

But it feels different. It makes me think about getting here because for the first time in years I am no longer technically a student. I have ended my registration period. I have been doing this research for years and this has been my life. I have had problems with illness, landlords, and lockdowns. I have struggled with confidence, considered binning my research, and written at least a whole thesis worth of words that I’ll probably never used.

I have read hundreds of papers, interviewed a wide range of people, sat analysing transcripts and coded them for days and days. I have five jobs, teaching critical philosophy, criminology, worked in a local library, as a academic note-taker, and now I am teaching cycling to children part-time.

I have made great friends along the way, lived in three different places, listened to the struggles of others, turned to others for advice. I have had great support from my supervisors, although at times been angry with them for their feedback, which in the end, nearly always turned out to be good feedback that I just didn’t want to hear.

I have been completely confused for huge long periods of time. I know a phd is supposed to be confusing, having to orient your research in a bewildering amount of literature, full of different perspectives, arguments, assumptions, knowledge systems and academic power-relations, but really, it was way more confusing than I expected it to be.

I don’t really feel like celebrating, because I’ve got a lot of edits left to do… but it does feel different.