Adorned in my doctoral regalia on a beautiful spring day at my alma mater, I beamed with joy and pride as I posed for professional photos to announce my successful completion of my Doctor of Philosophy in Higher Education degree. At that moment, I was full of many emotions, including a deep sense of gratitude, excitement, and plain exhaustion. I felt a sense of relief that finally, this goal I had dreamed of and worked towards for over a decade was now all a memory.
Fast forward to today, now over a year since I officially earned the title of Dr., I am struck by how mundane life on the other side of an academic milestone can be. I now know that the journey, not merely the destination, was the actual goal. As Emily Swain explains in a 2022 Healthline piece “Post-Grad Depression is Real—Why It Happens and How to Cope”, recent graduates can sometimes face post-graduation depression. The sudden onset of a lack of purpose after dedicating so many years to one seemingly insurmountable task, the discrepancy between your expected career outcomes, and the realities of a challenging job market—these are just a few reasons recent grads may deal with “post-graduation blues.”
While I understand and have experienced some of these emotions, I choose to reflect on, explicate, own, and embody what the journey to achieving this academic milestone taught me and how it changed me forever. For many current, past, or future doctoral students, getting to the finish line and earning their degree is what dreams are made of. I want to offer the following takeaways as important and valuable lessons your journey to (and through) doctoral studies may teach you and how these lessons continue to grow in value after you walk across the stage. Below, I offer insight into three of my most poignant lessons with hopes that it may encourage those at any stage of the decision to pursue a doctorate or really, any goal.
‘Brick by brick’ progress earns degreesIn his recent memoir Will, world-famous actor Will Smith shared an anecdote about when his father tasked him and his older brother with building a wall when they were just little boys. As they toiled in the heat for over a year, with no end in sight and no vision of how their work would lead to an actual wall, Will speaks about the mantra they used to build resilience—brick by brick. His father taught him and his brother not to worry about the wall but instead focus on laying one brick at a time. Will states, “When I focused on the wall, the job felt impossible, never-ending. But when I focused on one brick, everything got easy … I started to see that the difference between a task that seems impossible and a task that feels doable is merely a matter of perspective.”
Child labor issues aside, this story illustrates a fundamental lesson I learned through my doctoral journey. Four months after I had my first child, I began year three of my PhD program. This year was a pivotal year, as I had planned to write and defend my dissertation proposal to then begin my research study. There was only one problem—I was a drastically exhausted new mom with little support outside of my husband, who worked long hours outside the home, meaning I spent all day caring for our infant while working remotely part-time and functioning on very limited sleep.
After months of avoiding my dissertation advisor, I finally had a meeting with her in October of that fall semester. In that meeting, she encouraged me to aim for 30 minutes of writing each day whenever I could squeeze it in. She worked with me to craft a plan complete with deadlines for sections of the first three chapters of my dissertation. That meeting sparked something in me. The plan and deadlines suddenly seemed doable when broken down into tiny steps (or bricks).
It was after that meeting that I began waking up early to write. At first, I could only get in a few minutes of reading or writing before my little one woke up, but eventually, after he started sleeping through the night consistently, I worked my way up to 4:30 am wake-ups. I laid a small brick during each early morning writing session until my over 200-page dissertation was completed.
Mindset mattersDo whatever you can to protect your mindset from settling into negative and impossible thought patterns. There were many days, even months, during my studies when I felt defeated.
While earning my doctorate, I dealt with the complete upheaval of a global pandemic, navigated a home-buying and moving process, pregnancy, becoming a mom, postpartum, and solo parenting all day while studying full-time and working part-time. I felt constantly overwhelmed, constantly exhausted. I had to actively rewire my thinking by finding and practicing the things that would pull me out of negative thought patterns. I learned that my faith was important to me. I learned that movement and sleep were my life hacks. I learned to practice gratitude for life and good health.
Most importantly, I learned to keep showing up and cultivating joy along the journey. We all have this same power to find what uplifts us in challenging times. This is an important lesson I will forever hold on to.
Your community will sustain youA doctoral journey can be a very isolating experience for anyone. As you continue through the process, even if you may have started with a cohort of folks, you'll eventually find yourself where it's you, your ideas, your computer screen, and your ability to bring the ideas of your study to life. I learned through my journey the importance of community.
It was crucial to my academic success to find and create a community that would carry me through even when I didn't feel like continuing. For me, that community included one or two fellow Black women scholars who would hop on Zoom on Saturday mornings to chitchat a little bit and then sit in silence while we each wrote what we needed for the day. For me, that community included mom friends upon whom I could lean, ask questions, or lament about the challenges of new motherhood. For me, that community was a faith community. For me, that community consisted of friends and family who had no idea about anything that had to do with my dissertation or my studies but who were a safe space for me to be and to laugh.
This lesson is essential, and I think we all know it, but we can sometimes forget it. As a society, we are more isolated and disconnected than ever before. Isolation makes us believe we are alone. We can build and develop the communities we need to sustain and carry us to wherever we want to go.
When I think about my time in the trenches of my doctoral studies, there were many challenges, but also many lessons. The one word that comes to my mind is “resilience.” The journey tested, stretched, and challenged me in various ways, but my resilience and fortitude grew stronger through it.
The lessons above were invaluable for me. I encourage you to think about what lessons your doctoral journey may have or will teach you and how you can best continue to grow and learn from whatever journey life takes you on. I did my impossible thing, and you can do your impossible thing, too.
Dawn Ogali-Frederic, Ph.D. (she/her), is a higher education scholar-practitioner with over a decade of experience supporting students, staff and faculty. With a focus on research-informed practice, Dawn aims to promote the success of diverse populations in higher education. In her current role, Dawn provides strategic support for faculty development and success initiatives at Rutgers University. Dawn is a proud alum of Rutgers University, the University of Connecticut and Florida International University.