Article #15: No man is an Island
“No man is an island,” they say. But many of us who have lived through 2020 (and now 2021 too!) may feel quite like Tom Hanks’s character, Chuck Nolan, in Cast Away. Perhaps just short of having a volleyball named Wilson for a friend.
With or without a pandemic, life in academia can be rather lonely at times. I remember when I first met with a potential PhD supervisor to discuss my proposed topic for research, one of the first things he said to me was this: “Pursuing a PhD by research can be a long and lonely journey.” Wow. What an enticement to a potential postgraduate student. Now, having spent 13 years in higher education, I know that statement to be true. It CAN be long and lonely, but it DOES NOT have to be.
While most education systems have conditioned students to perform writing tasks in isolation, it doesn’t have to be that way. In fact, it should not be. Even the best writers can benefit from dialoguing with another person about their writing. Like Chuck, it would do us well to have a Wilson by our side too, but preferably one who can talk back to us.
It is precisely with this in mind that CELFE pioneered the Writing Consultation Service for postgraduate students in Spring 2021. In a short span of two months, our centre received 20 requests for consultation sessions from postgraduate students of all faculties in the university. Unlike writing classes that discuss generic topics pertaining to academic writing, these consultation sessions are writer-led and specifically focused on the writing task at hand.
It may seem intimidating and vulnerable at first to share one’s writing with another as the written work is often an intimate part of the writer. However, writers who have utilised this service particularly pointed out that it was helpful to be able to talk to another person about their own writing - to dialogue about one’s writing. In fact, one of the writers commented that it was a “less stressful conversation”.
So the next time you feel like one of the characters in
PhD Comics - sitting all alone in front of the computer staring at your unfinished thesis, feeling like you are on an island with just you and your writing task - perhaps all you need is someone to talk to about your writing. And that is what we are here for. Remember: the postgraduate journey can be long and lonely, but it does not have to be.
Contributed byDorcas Lam