Should I Be Here?

Nearly every PhD student has a moment during their first year when they seri- ously question whether they should be there or not. Don’t be surprised when this happens, and don’t feel like it only happens to you. You might question whether you want to do this or whether you are able to do this. Both of these are fair questions.

In terms of whether you want to do this, it is useful to remember that getting a PhD is kind of an odd thing -– not getting a PhD is what normal people do. Many if not most undergraduate political science courses do a poor job of showing students what it’s like to be a professional political scientist. In Biology 101 or Chemistry 101 students often have a lab as part of the course where they perform experiments, record results, and write up reports.

In contrast, Political Science 101 and nearly every other introductory politi- cal science course works through factual material and textbook presentations of it through some combination of lectures and discussions. Rarely are our undergrad- uate students shown how political scientists reached the conclusions that allow them to make claims to knowledge that get published in these books.

Thus, when a biology or chemistry major moves on to a PhD, they already know what it’s like to work in the lab and be a real scientist. All too often, a student who starts a PhD in political science has had little or no exposure to how political scientists do their work. In most serious PhD programs, the first year or more includes a heavy dose of quantitative methods training and sometimes training in formal theory as well. For many students, the mathematical and methodological expectations of modern political science are not what they imagined.

Similarly, graduate seminars are heavy on reading and place a lot of respon- sibility on the students to lead the seminar based on their discussion and critique of each week’s readings. While undergraduate courses often focus on the findings and conclusions of scholars, graduate seminars focus heavily on the theory, meth- ods, and data used by scholars to make their knowledge claims. All of this is part of the process of helping to convert a graduate student from a consumer of politi- cal science knowledge into a critic and ultimately a producer of such knowledge. The contrast between what undergraduate political science looks like and graduate level political science looks like is stark for many students and is a leading cause

of why some graduate students decide pursuing a PhD is not for them.

Another concern many students have is whether they have the ability to pursue a PhD. The work is harder and often quite different from anything they have done before. For many students, graduate school is the first time they’re surrounded by people who are just as smart or smarter than they are. Sometimes first year students just doubt themselves and their ability to ever reach the level of their professors or even that of the more advanced graduate students. Here I have three things to say.

First, any respectable PhD program will not admit students that they do not believe have the raw ability to complete the PhD. If you are in a reasonably good program and that program is funding you, you can rest assured that the program would not make the heavy investment in admitting you if they thought you were not up to the task. So relax a little bit and remember that you were good enough to get in.

Second, it has been my experience that the students who appeared to be the smartest early in that first year do not always turn out to be so. Sometimes they just know a bit more jargon. Sometimes they have a confidence or even an arro- gance that allows them to speak first and speak often in class. Sometimes they have taken graduate coursework already. Some have some exposure from a prior job that helps them look more comfortable. Sometimes they are actually smart. However, as I will point out several times, hard work quickly replaces raw intel- ligence in graduate school. You may have a genius in your cohort, but the more likely outcome after five years of graduate school is that the person who works the hardest and manages their time effectively is the person who performs the best.

Third, pursuing a PhD is a marathon, not a sprint. Having it all together or looking like the smartest kid in class in the first semester or even the first year might be nice, but this is a long process. Like running a marathon, being the first person to pass mile marker number one rarely predicts who finishes the race strong. There is a reason it takes five years. Have patience, and cut yourself some slack regarding what you know and what you don’t know during the first year. Of course, I do not mean slack off regarding your work ethic. Rather, just start to get comfortable with the idea that you don’t know everything yet. In fact, I will let you in on a secret: you will never know everything – no one knows everything. I think advanced education should be about embracing your ignorance, not hiding from it.