Hi BHC, hmmmmmm, sexist/classist attacks eh! Well there's a bit of drama for you. Nothing on the telly?

I was discussing my own personal experience in a department whose PhD students are largely private or grammar school educated young men, who come across as extremely confident.

I said that my feelings of insecurity relate to two things: firstly, confidence levels, privately educated young people are, on the whole super confident about their abilities, much more so than comprehensive school kids. This is my experience of attending 3 universities where I have been one of the rare ex comp students (and one who failed everything there to boot).

My second insecurity is about grammar, punctuation and writing style - elements which were all largely absent from my school education, and which were only addressed with the greatest brevity during the 3 part time years I spent at a community college. I hardly think that counts as classist!!! I mean really!!My friend is an English teacher at a very well respected private school and I know the teaching of grammar, writing etc is of an on infinitely higher standard than at you local comp. That's just a fact - why else do you think parents pay fortunes to send their kids to these places. Are we not allowed to talk about that for fearing offending people who went to these schools?

A professor who victimises a student because they have a working class accent and poor grammar skills (without actually tellng them that grammar is a problem for them), as happened to me, really is - so please get some perspective.

Are you suggesting that we can no longer discuss subtle sexism? In the way that you have, re: your comment about young women being hired only for their looks?

Hi Pineapple,

I understand what you're feeling. I often feel inadequate when I compare myself with other students. I believe the main reason for feeling like this is that I am a foreign student, so I am always doubting my English language skills, mostly my speaking skills... Sometimes when I am speaking to someone and I realize that I've made grammar mistakes I start feeling nervous and worried that I am going to come across as a complete idiot...
On the other hand, I try to fight all these thoughts by reminding myself that I am here for a reason and that I should not compare myself to anyone. We all have different backgrounds and we all do things differently. As someone said, we should try to do our best and be the best we can be.

I hope you'll feel better with time

All the best;-)

Hey,
I think everyone has days like that all the time so don't beat yourself up about it! At the end of the day you got into the PhD on merit and who cares at this stage what you got as an undergrad.

I used to feel much more insecure about PhD stuff than I do now, in fact my supervisor mentioned ages ago that I should be more confident about my work than I was. For some reason, the insecurity has mostly gone now, so I think I must have grown in confidence throughout the whole process without realising it. I think doing what you and other posters have suggested, to focus on why you do deserve to be doing your PhD and what you have achieved, is the best thing to do when you have wobbly insecure moments.

It's been quite interesting in retrospect comparing myself and a few colleagues who have also got to the end of their PhDs. While we worried about whether we were good enough and had moments of self-doubt, others who oozed arrogant over-confidence all through their PhDs either produced fairly average work or failed completely, even after resubmission. Being really confident about your work isn't necessarily indicative of being academically brilliant, but sometimes can veer towards self-delusion, it appears....

Thank you Ruby, that's very encouraging!

That's ok Eska, nice of you to say so! :-)

I'm another one who's taken an odd academic/work route into my PhD, so am aware of some of the attitudes and problems one encounters along the way. I think it's all been worth doing for reasons of personal achievement, if nothing else!

I agree with Ruby - although I'm nearing the end of my third year, I still feel inadequate at times and often wonder if I'm really cut out to do a PhD. I think I do feel more confident now though than when I first started, but I guess the feeling has never really gone away. I always seem to be comparing myself to others and often feel that I'm in a league below them in terms of knowledge and so on. I have to tell myself that yes, I CAN do it and I will get there eventually, but I know how difficult that can be!! ;-)

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Wow, thanks for your messages everyone! It's such a comfort to read that I'm not alone with my feelings!

Within my department, I know they only offer the scholarships for people with 1st class honours- and I know that all of the PhD students in my department have 1st class first degrees. I on the other hand was lucky enough to win my studentship/scholarship, basically as I had 2 MSc degrees and from my clinical and research experience which has overshadowed my undergraduate degree. I guess, I feel in comparison with them, at times, I feel that I don't deserve to be in this position, but then again, I've worked very hard to get where I want to be and I continue to remain focused and as dedicated to my PhD as I can be.

Considering the problems I had with my upgrade reports, now, my supervisors seem to be very happy with my progress (as well as non supervisors within my department) so I'm using that as evidence to suggest that I do deserve to be in this position- that is so close to completing my PhD. Although I have my off days of low productivity, I seem to have this desire within me to keep my supervisors happy and to meet their demands in between supervison.

If anything, perhaps my underperformance at undergraduate level has become a source of motivation to keep going. I know that in completing this PhD, I know that I will have obtained a very reputable qualification which will, I hope show to myself and to others that I'm worthy of so much more than what people see me as. So completing this PhD will not only (hopefully) overcome my own confidence issues and demons it will also help with career stuff as well.

In the meantime, I'm just trying to meet small deadlines I've made to myself in order to meet my supervisors demands and requests. I know that I'm far more confident on every level then when I started nearly three years ago. It's just a question of gritting my teeth, pushing though and getting things done and keeping my focus.

I'm also in total agreement in trying to make myself think that I CAN DO IT!! and overcome some of the negative thoughts (ie I'm no good, I'm a crap PhD student, I don't deserve this, I'm too thick, I'm not clever enough etc etc) regardless of the odds and the difficulties that I seem to keep facing! . Perhaps this my way of practicing a bit of cognitive restructuring and challenging my negative thoughts with help from some of the cognitive behavioural techniques!

Nevertheless, reading peoples thoughts and experiences of the whole PhD process has definitely helped with the process!

Hopefully, we will get there in the end!

Hi,

I sympathise with you.

I read somewhere that most people who actually finish their thesis obtain their degree in the end. Maybe the main challenge is sticking with it - it sounds like this is what you're doing. There are probably a lot of academically brilliant people who have ‘failed’ because they just couldn’t endure for whatever reason.

Personally I find that when I think what I’m doing isn’t any good, it can be helpful to just do it anyway! I’m talking about the writing process here really – just do it anyway and quite often it can turn into something good.

Lou