Print This PostHave you ever been in a room of people calmly nodding, while your brain is about to pour out through your nose? That was the first lab meeting in my PhD. A room of researchers discussing the latest findings on computational modelling with clarity and confidence. Academics whose brains probably worked at double the speed of mine. They could probably see the matrix. A room of amazingly intelligent researchers, and me. Me sitting with my head whirring, staring blankly at graphs whizzing by as the feeling of inadequacy grew. I left that meeting feeling that I knew nothing. All the years of study leading me to this point paled in comparison to the mountain in front of me. The insurmountable task of understanding enough to earn my PhD. Understanding a tiny sliver of what most academics could rhyme off in their sleep. A tiny, insurmountable sliver.
I didn’t come from a family of doctors. I come from a family of puppeteers and engineers, customer service workers and even a botanist! I love talking to my family and we have interesting discussions about everything and nothing, but we don’t hold intellectual debate over dinner. As I’m sure is the case for most people. I’d gotten a glimpse into the world of academia in my undergraduate and master’s degree, but stepping into my PhD very much felt like stepping out of the safe zone. I wasn’t a student any more. I was being paid to do research. The goalposts had shifted. The discussions grew more complex and I felt more pressure to understand what was being said. Even though I had no experience in the field. Even though I hadn’t been taught or trained to engage with these kinds of conversations. Even though, and I can’t stress this enough, I knew nothing.
I like to think most people feel the same way as they begin their PhD. Perhaps that assumption is incorrect and everyone else knows exactly what they’re doing, but the more people I talk to, the harder that is to believe.
It was a conversation with my supervisor that first pushed me to question all those negative emotions that accompanied knowing nothing. Sat in a beautiful garden, having done nothing all week except read, he gave me a goal for the end of my first term as a doctoral researcher. I was ready for the challenge. Write a review article. Complete my first piece of independent research. Be published in Nature perhaps. None of the above. Instead he told me that the goal for the end of my first term was to feel like I knew nothing… mission accomplished? This somewhat unexpected target immediately left me with two questions: 1) why was that useful, and 2) why was that the expectation?
Let’s begin with the first. Why was it that my academic supervisor thought it beneficial I feel I know nothing three months into my PhD? Perhaps he was satisfied with me simply hibernating and trying again in spring? The truth is that knowing nothing is often a sign that you do actually know something. Because to feel you know nothing, you must compare how much you know, to how much you don’t know. By extension, knowing nothing means you know how much you don’t know. And once you know how much you don’t know, it’s easier to begin knowing more. In fact, it’s almost impossible to start learning the things you don’t know you don’t know. Minus all the repetition, it’s easy for someone with very little expertise to feel confident on a subject because they’re unaware of how vast and complex the subject is. For example, I remember the days when I was very confident in explaining how antidepressants work. That feeling of dread when I realised how complicated the field was beyond what I was taught in school, showed I’d gone past that point. The road ahead may be long, arduous and filled with confusion, but at least you know there is a road. Which is more than most people will ever discover.
Question two: why was that the expectation? The answer to that is much simpler. It is because despite my best efforts, I was (and am) a PhD student. As a PhD student, you aren’t supposed to know everything. You’re not a finished product, and no-one expects you to be a fully-fledged researcher by week 2. Or year 2. The truth is that the pressure I was putting on myself was far greater than that from anyone else. Everyone in my lab knew I was still learning, and they also knew I’d never stop.
So, here’s the big secret when starting your PhD – you’re supposed to feel like you know nothing.
Feeling you know nothing isn’t always a bad thing, and you’re likely being much harder on yourself than anyone else is. The other big secret is that everyone else also thinks they know nothing. The other people in your cohort, the PhD students a few years ahead of you, your mentors, your lab mates, and probably your supervisor too. The more we learn the less we’re confident about anything. Welcome to academia!
I still see people nodding in lab meetings when I’m at a complete loss. Sometimes I’m even nodding with them, but now I also have the confidence to ask for clarification. As I enter the third year of my PhD I still think I know nothing. I just know nothing in a different way than I did when I started. I wear my cluelessness as a badge of honour to show that I, too, am a scientist. Our job as scientists is to push out the boundaries of what people know, and I see knowing nothing as a natural consequence of existing in that space. Engaging with that level of uncertainty and complexity has become a joy of mine. Knowing nothing isn’t scary anymore, it’s a challenge. A challenge to start climbing that tiny, insurmountable sliver.
You’ll receive an incredible amount of advice when you start your PhD: tailor it to your needs, get a mentor, maintain work-life balance, etc. For me all of that was very useful, but what I really needed was someone to tell me it was all okay. And so now I’ll say it to you, in the hopes it might sink in: it’s okay to feel you know nothing. At the start of your PhD, the end of your PhD, and beyond. Take that feeling as a sign you’re learning. Accept that learning is still part of your job. And enjoy the climb.
Rebecca Williams
Author
Rebecca Williams is PhD student at the University of Cambridge. Though originally from ‘up North’ in a small town called Leigh, she did her undergraduate and masters at the University of Oxford before defecting to Cambridge for her doctorate researching Frontotemporal dementia and Apathy. She now spends her days collecting data from wonderful volunteers, and coding. Outside work, she plays board games, and is very crafty.
Rebecca Williams
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