Some notes on the transcription…
I wanted to provide a transcript of The PhD Life Raft podcast episodes to make the material more accessible.
I have used an automated transcription service to produce this document. These, as we all know, are not 100% accurate. Please excuse the odd typos and grammatical mis-translations. I hope that you will find the documentation of this conversation useful.
You can find the full interview here: https://thephdliferaft.libsyn.com/
Emma
Hello, Tash, hi.
Natasha Joyce
How are you doing? I
Emma
am good. I’m looking forward to this. Thank you so much for being here. The question, the golden question that we are attending to today is, when is the right time to do the PhD. And do you have all the answers here? I know. But before we get into that, I’m going to ask you to tell us a little bit, like I do with everybody, a bit about your journey into and through the PhD. So tell us a little bit about you. Okay,
Natasha Joyce
thank you. I think my journey’s been a little bit non traditional, and certainly not something I predicted at any point about 10 years ago now, I finished up a job in what had been as a trade union organizer did the classic burnout, which is very familiar to anyone in that industry, and came home to my country town in Victoria, quickly realized I was very bored, and went to university and went to uni and just said, I’ll have have a bash at this. Hadn’t done it before. Well, not Well, I’d had a very brief attempt when I was 18, and being almost 50 now, I thought, well, yeah, I’ll give it a go. And found out it was relatively easy after a union organizing job for 20 years. And went, oh, I’ll just stick around and see what happens and keep doing it until I get bored. And at the end of the degree, I did honors, and I got through my honors degree, and my supervisor for honors said, you know, you should really try going for the PhD. And I went, sure that sounds interesting. Didn’t actually know what it involved, which I would probably go back over and do again and look into it a bit more. But yeah, I just went, sounds good. Let’s do that. And got a scholarship for the PhD and landed in it, and I’ve been doing that since then. And so that’s it’s kind of without realizing it, which is a quite often the way with me, as I landed in it accidentally, and it turned out really well. I
Emma
love it. I love it. Not yet. Let’s go. Let’s do that. That’s good. Let’s do that. That’s a lot of people end up that way. And maybe this is good. Maybe if you knew what the PhD was like, you wouldn’t do it.
Natasha Joyce
Let’s sort of I suspect if people knew just how intense it can be, it’s not the amount of work for me, it’s how intense can get. That’s the challenge for me, and I get very annoyed at not being able to do things perfectly the first time. Classic overachiever.
Emma
You go, you are in good company there. And also, I say, in good company in the way that people get lured in the PhD, and then that’s it. They’ve been got. And then they have to deal with, deal with what they find there. But I think this sense of, because there were so many so because you are fascinating person, and your story is amazing, and I get the benefit of knowing that before we before we start. But there were so many ways that we could have taken this conversation, but we decided to this sense of the question of when is the right time to do the PhD, because it’s a question that I know a lot of people struggle with in terms of, like, Should I do it now? You know what’s the right time? I’ve got this going on. I’ve got that going on. And I suppose this is where we get to the point of what is going on for you, TASH, at the moment in terms of the other things around around the PhD. And because the spoiler, I guess, to this conversation is there isn’t really a right time to do a PhD, and that what you’re doing is working through what other things are going on. So can you tell us a little bit about what else is going on, why this may be the right time, or maybe there’s questions that you’ve asked yourself about, is this right time for the PhD?
Natasha Joyce
Absolutely. And I think, as you said, is there, you know, there isn’t really a specific right time that’s going to apply for everyone. It’s going to be so different. And what I think allowed me the, I think, confidence to do it, was that I had the support of my mum, who I am, her carer, and she was like, yeah, we can look after each other. Oh, well, we go through this, and that was an important part of it. But what I had going on in my life is that I was, I had become a full time carer for mum, so I wasn’t working full time, right? But that did mean to that I had no money, right? So I did say I’d got a scholarship. It was a very minimal amount, but it was, you know, a stipend enough to live on. Them, because I’d grown up poor and been pretty poor most of my life. I was actually I know how to live in those circumstances and get by. It’s not ideal, but you can do it. And I think having that background helped a great deal in terms of resilience. It also gave me a great deal of, I think, what’s the word where I bite something and can’t let go of it? I’m sure, tenacious.
Emma
Tenacious, yeah, yeah,
Natasha Joyce
stubborn is the other one, I think, is, once I started something, I’m a completist, and I want to finish it, even if it’s going to kill me. And at some points I have thought that might be the case, right, right? Yeah, my health has, has suffered directly because of it, I would say. But just the long hours sitting and typing, but I think in terms of what it positives for what it’s been a right time for me, is that I’ve had the space and been allowed to do it and felt confident to do it. I don’t think I could have done that in my 30s. I wouldn’t have had the confidence to do it in my 20s, that’s for sure. And I’m constantly just so impressed by the young people that I work with doing their PhDs, and how confident they are and how how knowledgeable they are, and I just that wasn’t the person I was in my 20s and 30s. So
Emma
this is really important, because I get hear from a lot of people who are kind of like, Am I too old to do a PhD, and I guess what I’m hearing from you is absolutely not. And actually, there can be real benefits to being a mature PhD. Tell us. Tell us about that. Tell us about that. Absolutely
Natasha Joyce
I couldn’t. I literally had to go at university the first time around when I was 18 and left home for the first time and was living in Melbourne, in the city on my own, having come from a country town, and I just crashed and burned because I had no idea how to live life or how to be an adult, and so I couldn’t do that level of study. That’s not the PhD. That was just undergrad. But then I got through life, you know, the 20s and 30s of a very intense, hard job of union organizing, which is very high pressure, and you have to be able to respond very quickly, but also be really good with people. And they were skills that really, really made a difference when I came back to university, because not only did I know how to talk to people and do research, I knew how to look for things, I knew that if I didn’t know the answer, someone would know the answer. And that was probably one of the biggest things that helped me, is that even though I didn’t necessarily know, someone else would know and I didn’t have a problem going and finding that person, that person, that sort of confidence that comes from being a 40 year old woman. I
Emma
love that so much. And the sense of all that, all the experience that work has brought to your research, I love honoring that. Because I think a lot of people kind of go, oh, well, I’ve been out of academia, and I have, you know, I haven’t done and what I love is that you’re absolutely recognizing all the skills that you bring from having been out in the workplace, and that that can really enrich and make the PhD a much better experience. As you say, it’s
Natasha Joyce
making my PhD itself, like the thesis itself, is going to benefit from it, but more so in terms of the levels of stress. Yeah, this kind of came up actually, during my honors year and writing the the miniature that I realize now, the miniature chapter that was my honors thesis, but I’d lost a bunch of work on a US. I’d lost my USB. Oh no. And I explained it to my supervisor, and he said, Oh, you don’t seem very worried about it. And I went, Oh, look, I probably lost about 3000 words. It’s annoying, but it’s not the end of the world. And he sort of just really gave me this strange look and goes, but I would have thought you’d be, you know, upset and crying. You know, I get students in here crying about that sort of thing. And I went, Yeah, you know what, mate, though I’ve, I’ve been in a job where, if I could get a phone call that someone’s dead, and, you know, because of something I’ve done wrong, 3000 words is annoying. No one’s died any just the look I got, yeah, it was very interesting response. I don’t think that was something that was was often heard in those halls,
Emma
yeah. And this is so important, isn’t it, and I think also recognizing the other things that you’ve got on going on in your life in terms of being a full time carer, that actually these can really put the work in perspective, the PhD in perspective, and give a sense of, okay, I can do all of this really hard stuff. I can totally do, like, actually, this sense of what the kind of priorities and what’s important that’s really, really important to remember. And it also coming back to what you saying before, in terms of life experience and in terms of because I think there can be being a first generation scholar coming from a poor background, and I recognize this in my own story. People can be like, Oh, poor you. You You know, you grew up on a council say, whatever, but it’s like, actually, like you said, that means I know how to live on, not very much. That means that I have real skills in this area. Yeah, yeah, navigating,
Natasha Joyce
that’s something that’s come through really good for me in the PhD, and it’s been interesting, sort of seeing the reactions of other academics from a very different class system to me. And I think people like to think Australia doesn’t have a class system, and we very much do, and it’s when you come from, as you said, a council estate, literally, Councilor state, state in country, Victoria. You get a very specific attitude from some academics that can be fun to play with.
Emma
Tell us about that. Tell us about play with that.
Natasha Joyce
It’s it just depends on whether they know who you are or not, and sometimes I I’ve discovered that my reputation can precede me, but when they don’t know and they don’t know that you know you’ve been doing another job for 20 or 30 years, assumptions are made about the way you Speak and the way you dress and the way you look, and so you can use that to your advantage quite well, depending on where you are and whether or not you actually want a full time, full time, long, happy academic career in that university. But it just can be very funny where very certain types of people will make assumptions, and you let that play out for a while, and they will just keep saying things and digging themselves a hole, and then you can just sort of drop, well actually, when I was speaking with the commissioner last week about blah, blah, blah, blah and watch their faces, it’s just really entertaining. May not actually do your career any good in the long run, but it’s quite amused. Quite amusing.
Emma
Well, I think this what I’m going to take from that is that sense of, like sitting in your own wisdom and sitting in what you know about yourself, and having that sense of groundedness, and that’s what I come comes through so strongly from you. Is that sense of, I know where I come from, I know what I can do. I know what I’m capable of, and here I am, and I think this is just gorgeous, and let’s sing that out to other people in terms of that when is the right time, because I think when is the right time question can bring up, am I enough? Do I know enough? Have I done enough? And what I love about your story is this sense of your own enoughness, what you bring, all of that, that you bring and and as I say, sitting in your own wisdom, oh yes, sorry for me to cut you off. No, no, please, please do.
Natasha Joyce
I think what’s kind of stood out for me is that that confidence and knowing that I know things that are going to be useful has actually really played into my thesis itself, which is about children growing up in poverty historically, you know, right in the in the 19th century, but that I have that understanding that maybe academics who are working in that space as well intentioned and as as much as they know, are not going to necessarily have that perspective that they can bring. And so I’m hopeful, when I finally finish this thesis, that it will be something that actually is putting out information and knowledge about voices that haven’t been heard before. And that’s what’s really important
Emma
to me. This is gorgeous, isn’t it? I think this sense of being called into the work and bringing your own perspective to that, and this sense of of that different question, I guess, in terms of, like, have I got rather than, have I got enough? It’s like, what? What do I know? What do I see that other people don’t see? Because I’m coming from this particular perspective, and yes, that sense of you really inhabiting that research and attending to those voices, having a having that sympathetic ear to voices that other people haven’t necessarily been tuned into. Yeah,
Natasha Joyce
very much. So yeah,
Emma
and I know, let’s say, because I have the benefit of the of the bigger picture. I know that not only are you a carer, but you also have your own issues that you’re you’re attending to. And I wonder if you want to say a little bit about that, because I know, again, in this question of when is the right time to start the PhD, people are kind of like, well, I need to wait till the stars are aligned, until I feel better, until this and that. And I kind of, I guess you might have a different perspective on that,
Natasha Joyce
yeah. So a combination of my body just deteriorating with a variety of degenerative conditions, mostly spinal, but also then being one of the classic late in life, finding out that the reason I have these huge collections of things and hyper focus on things and do all of these strange things. Is a word called autism that I had no idea about, and finding out about that was has been a blessing, but also very interesting to navigate around people who are used to me having a very particular personality that they’re familiar with, and them having an A an image of what Autism means in people trying to negotiate that with people that have known me for a long time at the University, has been really interesting, but it’s also been fun because it’s become a I now have all of the research skills that I didn’t have, so I can go and say hi. Here are all of these studies that say, XYZ, please shut up.
Natasha Joyce
A lot of my friends have just kind of going, yeah, yeah, that that, that sounds like you, yeah, that, no, that’s totally you. So it’s been a journey in terms of thinking about when is the right time. I’m glad I didn’t wait until everything got better, because it’s not going to get better, and accepting that the various conditions that I have aren’t going to improve and suddenly get better and are not going to be, you know, the 20 year old that can go running Up the hill doing my Kate Bush impersonations, yeah, I can now do that just sitting in a chair and doing things in a different way. It’s been interesting to from the perspective of trying to access records and get to archives and travel and dealing with the attitudes and the expectations that you should just do that as an academic has been very interesting, because I very rarely just agreed to do what people expect me to do, and they’re often quite surprised when you’ve show them that it can be done in a different way that they just haven’t thought of that before.
Emma
Oh, I love that so much. I love that so much. And I think absolutely ableism in the academy is something that we keep, keep needing to attend to and calling out. And that’s that sense of of really allowing your process to speak to that I think this is That’s gorgeous. And so important. One
Natasha Joyce
of the really interesting things I find when I’m in that space is is looking at people who have traditionally been very well looked after, so that they’ve been able to focus on their special interests for the last 50 years without having any deficiencies in their life. So that when they see people who necessarily, who maybe don’t have a wife who does all of the cooking for them, or a secretary to do all of their paperwork, etc, etc, when they see those people who can’t maybe cope with the way they’re doing things. It can have interesting outcomes. Well,
Emma
I think that’s a very diplomatic way
Natasha Joyce
I am being the most diplomatic that I can be.
Emma
Love it. But I think that that, I think we are putting a very positive spin on it here. But I think what, what your story does detail is some very particular challenges, which might have made you kind of go, actually, I’m not going to do this just now, because this, you know, I need to deal with this, and I need to do with that, but I also recognize that what you said right at the beginning was in terms of having that support and that very anchoring, grounded support, your mum is there. She said, we’re going to support each other through this. And I wonder if you wanted to say anything about that, in terms of you have faced these particular challenges, you clearly are a very resourceful and feisty woman, which I love. Is there anything you want to say about the sort of support systems and that you’ve put in place for yourself?
Natasha Joyce
I think the two of the main things has really been my supervisor has been in there to bat for me from day one. Oh, great. We
Emma
love a shout out to a good supervisor. Here. Can we? Can we have her name? Yeah,
Natasha Joyce
Doctor Jennifer Jones. She is amazing. She’s been batting for me since undergrad, when I had her literally my first semester. And I love telling this story that it took me five tutorials with her to make her laugh because she wasn’t going to break she’s very professional and very serious, and I am not. It took me five tutorials to get her to laugh at one of my jokes, but I did it, and that’s when I knew I’d broken through. And yet she’s been a huge influence on my work, but also being really supportive and recognizing that I’m not from a traditional background and and having she’s had faith, and she will appreciate that I say that she’s had faith for many reasons. She’s had faith that I can do this. It’s there’s been a lot of hurdles and obstacles. Covid Obviously, the shutdowns, the lockdowns in Melbourne and Victoria that we went through were quite disruptive for a lot of reasons, but also my family have been very supportive, because I have to say to them quite often, you know, I can’t come to this family gathering, or I can’t do this, or I can do that also, can you please stop interrupting me all the time? But another really important thing for me has been my friend friendship group. They have, I wouldn’t say all of them, but the majority of people have really been behind me, going and doing this and knowing that I’m enjoying it and doing it for the love of knowledge. There were people going, Oh, well, you know, what’s this going to do? You know, how is this going to help your political career, and I’m going, Oh, guys, I think, I think I blew that out of the water a long time ago. Now that’s not happening, and they are really enjoying seeing the the weird places I end up in because of the PhD and the places that I put myself in. So having that group of friends that I can talk to, and, you know, group chats that I chat with every day. I don’t get to see them very often, because they all live in Melbourne, but we all talk every day. And it might be that I will say to them, you know, I read a really difficult inquest today, and, you know, Can I just talk about that for a bit, and they’ll listen, and it’s really important. This is so good. And then there’s mum that will bring me a cup of tea at two in the morning when I’m still up riding.
Emma
Gotta love, gotta love mum
Natasha Joyce
bringing me tea and Becky’s at two in the morning. Fantastic.
Emma
And I love i i had a sense of that, that kind of, that firm foundation, and the strong support that you have in place, and that you, you’re getting it from so many places, is fantastic. And the the importance of a good supervisor cannot be overestimated. I think really, that’s really, really important. I love that we’ve got a call out. But also, just to say, I think that you, equally, TASH, are very professional and serious, and I think that has been shown in this conversation today, in terms of the way in which you approach your work and attend to what is happening, not only in that that the kind of the research element, but in the in the wider journey that you were on to.
Natasha Joyce
Thank you. I appreciate that. I don’t get to actually hear it very often, but that’s not because people don’t say it. I’m just locked away in my room trying to finish all the time. People at the moment’s interesting.
Emma
I am aware of time. I’m aware of time here, and I always, we always finish the interviews, podcast interviews, with a ridiculous thing, which is a top tip. Ridiculous because, you know, is so reductive, but I do it anyway. So here is a question that, after all we’ve said today, what would be the top tip that you would like to leave with people.
Natasha Joyce
It’s going to sound, I don’t know it might sound tweak, but the the skills that you learn through the PhD, you can use them in your real life too. The research skills and the the knowledge that you pick up, you can apply, I say in real life, like your PhD, it’s real life. What am I talking about? But I mean, like my laptop died. I can’t afford to take my laptop to get it fixed. My research skills mean that, you know, I went and looked up how to how to fix my laptop. I don’t. I’m not a technical person at all, but there’s YouTube videos for everything these days, and it is so cool. So you know, that’s a skill, that’s a research skill that you have, recognizing that the answer will be out there somewhere. So when a problem comes up, you can go, I’m just going to go and find out what the answer is, or at least someone will have this has happened to someone before. I’m going to go and find out what they did in that situation. So there are so many things you can apply that to.
Emma
I love it and the sense of the PhD being a real life journey. It doesn’t have to be something ethereal exactly, although hopefully there are some ethereal moments. Let’s not cut that out. But TASH, thank you so so much. As you say, You are a very busy person, and I really appreciate you taking the time. Thank you for all that you’ve shared with us today.
Natasha Joyce
Thank you. No, I’ve really enjoyed doing it. I love podcasts, and doing podcasts, I think they’re great.
Emma
Thank you and thank you all for listening.
Natasha Joyce
Good night.