I would quite like to be talking about exciting, PhD-initiating things this week, but it ain’t quite like that. Let me tell you how it is.
Monday
I was still not enrolled. But that was OK (sort of), I had an appointment on Tuesday afternoon with the branch of my institution which is supposed to help students with their problems, and I was going to pull out all the stops to get this sorted out. After all, I’d tried literally everybody else who ought to have anything to do with it, sometimes more than once.
Tuesday
Morning: I got an email from the scholarships department, asking me if I still wanted a scholarship or not, and if I did, when was I going to take steps to get enrolled? Actually, they were much politer than that about it, which is an important point, in view of what followed.
Afternoon: I attended my help-for-students appointment and spoke to a kind, patient lady, who we will call Person A, and who was unable to help me in any way whatsoever. But she tried. Actually she did me a big favour, because my booking form said I was supposed to meet with Person B, but when I arrived, Person A said she would deal with me. I didn’t realise at first what a huge favour this was, but after I’d been there a while, Person B started to intervene in my case. The issue I was raising was that my classes were starting soon. The institution’s ‘Welcome Week’ had started last week. And I had received not so much as one email about any of these things, and had scarcely any way of knowing what was going on or how to get a link for the inevitably online meetings. Person B thought this was because I was too stupid to be signing up for a PhD in the first place, and said so. If I were not too stupid, he opined, I would have figured out these finer details before I even applied. Failing that, I would have got all the information I needed from the website, where everything was available. Naturally, I was quite chastened by this, even though I knew, deep down, that he should not be talking to students that way. Not even if the titbits of information he’d contemptuously thrown my way had turned out to be correct. As a matter of fact, they were all wrong, or highly misleading, as I found out when I got home and started looking into them. Due to a combination of COVID-19, restructuring, the nature of the doctoral programme, and the institution’s chronically out-of-date and labyrinthine website, the only way for new doctoral students to find out what’s going on, and what they’re supposed to be doing, is by word of mouth. Or word of email, anyway.
Wednesday
At an extremely late hour, the person who will be taking our methodologies seminar emailed me to ask if I actually wanted to join the doctoral programme, because my ex-future-supervisor had noticed my name was not on her class list.
Thursday
In the morning, early, I said I did indeed want to be in the programme, but I was having problems enrolling and seemed unable to wade through them. Then, I went to Kew Gardens to look at trees, which helped a bit. Soon, a flurry of emails flew back and forth, with just about everyone copied in, from people I’d already asked for help, to people I hadn’t got around to bothering yet. Things like that leave me crippled with embarrassment, but it seemed to work. Some time, late on Thursday, the methodologies seminar convener emailed the doctoral school administration manager. The gist of her communication was that the academic staff didn’t really agree with Person B’s assessment of my capabilities, so could they please do something about letting me in. Also, she added me to her methodologies seminar email list, so that is sorted out at least.
Friday
I was still not enrolled by the end of the day, but I had at last received the right offer. I now have the one that doesn’t contain structurally un-meet-able conditions related to structures that are owned by the institution in the first place. The one they promised me back at the end of July, the one which allows the institution’s records department to begin thinking about enrolling me. Also, I managed to attend the Doctoral School’s online induction, and discovered that out of more than 80 new students present, about 13 are fully enrolled and up-and-running. I said nothing at this meeting, however, the distress and frustration of those people who are good at expressing distress and frustration in public was prominent. Not surprisingly, because this situation has all kinds of financial, administrative and academic consequences for students.
The weekend
By the time Saturday rolled around, I had accumulated maximum stress from various kinds of embarrassment, humiliation, anxiety, and annoyance towards a bureaucratic system that would have the world’s worst civil service rolling out the red tape in awe. I am officially traumatised, and my brain is shot to hell to the point that Person B’s opinion of me on Tuesday is now a wild over-estimate. Still, I felt I ought to attempt something of consequence. One of my ‘training goals’ is to improve my Spanish and German. I can already read academic Spanish, and I can speak everyday German (badly). I want equalise my abilities in these two languages a bit. However, after experimenting with a number of things, I discovered that my intellectual level is at the point where I can just about aspire to a Dora the Explorer Sticker Book. So, buenas noches, mis amigos.