Upgraded!

(Originally posted on 10 April 2014)

As I mentioned in my last post, it seems like for as long as I’ve been at King’s, I’ve been “preparing for my upgrade”. Now, after 18 months, I have survived the process and am finally a fully-fledged PhD candidate.

I really had no idea what to expect from the upgrade meeting. I had spent the day before rereading the 20,000 word chapter that I had handed in for examination back in February, assuming that I would be quizzed on it. As it turned out, I wasn’t expected to say much at all in the meeting. Instead, it was a chance for the examiners, especially my secondary supervisor who had not previously commented on my work, to share their comments, queries and advice. While my two supervisors work on literary/cultural studies like myself, my third examiner was from political science, so she brought an interesting alternative viewpoint to the discussion.

My supervisor insisted that it went really well and that all three examiners had been impressed with my chapter, but I must admit that at the time I was just completely overwhelmed by the amount that I still have to think about. The wealth of further reading recommended by the examiners, and their suggestions on how to expand or refine sections of the chapter will surely prove invaluable in the long-run, helping me to make my thesis better. However, at the time I just wanted to run away and hide from it all. Only now, two weeks later, having finally completed the paperwork, that it has finally sunk in that I’ve passed. Now I can relax for the next 18 months (well, except for researching and writing and teaching and conferencing!) until submission, which I’m sure will come around all too quickly.