Mountains

A PhD is a very time-consuming exercise. I have just realised that it has been more than a year since I have posted anything. This unintentional oversight is because the process of writing is taking up most of my time, but also because I am working on the central ideas of my thesis and as a result come across less of the interesting side notes that I tend to write about here.

I am currently in my final year of the PhD, with only months left to get everything coherent, well edited and sent off for examination. It is a truly terrifying thought.

One of the things I have noticed from watching other people finish theses (both Masters and PhD) is the interesting metaphors used to describe the final push to the end. One of the more prevalent is that it is like giving birth. I have no experience in this particular area, so I can't say how accurate it is as a metaphor. 

However, I think I have found a better metaphor: mountain climbing. 

Not too long ago, only a matter of months, I climbed Mount Ngauruhoe while it still had snow on its slopes. Ngauruhoe is a dormant volcano in the Tongariro National Park in the centre of the North Island of New Zealand. It is almost 2,300 meters high. In the general scheme of things, it isn’t a very tall mountain, but the total effort did take seven and a half hours there and back again.

I got almost to the summit of Ngauruhoe a few years ago but had to turn back as we weren't sure how much further we had to go due to cloud cover and it was taking longer than anticipated. We now know that we were pretty close to the top at the time, on the outer crater edge. But that is not the summit, so we had to try again. This time we made it, despite the rainy weather and the winter conditions which hampered our efforts somewhat. 

On the way down and back to the car, I got to thinking about climbing mountains as a metaphor for doing a PhD. One of the reasons that I think it makes a suitable metaphor is that when you get to the top of a mountain, you are only half way there. You still have to climb down.

I am currently editing my work to put together a full draft. That is the current summit I am climbing. However, even when I get there, slogging my way up the unstable slopes on my hands and knees, trying not to slip in the snow and scree, I will still have a lot of work still to do. Even when I finish my thesis and finally submit it, I still have to have an oral examination and make any corrections necessary before it is finally finished. Done and dusted. (Then there is always the question of whether I should then try and get it published – another potential mountain to climb).

Another aspect of mountain climbing is false summits. Sometimes when climbing, the top of the mountain is obscured by the slope or a ridge line ahead, making it seem closer than it actually is. Just when you think you might have made it, the top appears in the distance over the ridge, and you realise there is still a way to go. Seeing the way to the summit is even harder when there is a lot of cloud cover resulting in poor visibility. There have been similar occurrences in my PhD journey too. Just when I think I have finished a chapter, I realise that I have missed something out and still have a lot of work to do. It is likely to happen again when I finally get the full draft complied as well.

Of course, like all metaphors, this one has its weaknesses too. Mountain climbing is physically challenging and dangerous (at least for me anyway) in a way that a thesis isn't. That said, I think it is a useful metaphor. So if you don't mind, I'm going to push on towards the summit that is currently obscured by the clouds.