Drake, Dissertations and Direction

Plus, the Music Highlight

A couple of weeks ago, in my chat here - it’s free for anyone to join - I asked the members of our community: Why did you decide to do a PhD?

I got various answers. Lovely answers full of inspiration - I’ll keep them to our community for now, if that’s okay.

I was thinking why I decided to do it.

I knew, even before undergrad, that I wanted to do a PhD. My dad had told me what a PhD is when I was little. He kind of told me what it was 😊 He knew my love of reading and learning, and he told me that if I want to, I can go to a really big school called university and I can learn a lot and teach if I want to and have lots of great teachers and then do any job I liked.

He never pressured me to do it, but he presented it with such enthusiasm, he opened my eyes to a world I loved to be part of. He had never gone to college or university, but he loves reading and is one of the most well-read people I know.

And when I told him after my Masters that I want to go to the even bigger school he had told me about, he was thrilled!

I was thinking about the PhD even before I started my Masters. Even when I was writing my dissertation. And I needed all the motivation I could get during my dissertation - I wrote it in my favorite cafe in Zug (which unfortunately doesn’t exist anymore), because my tiny apartment was so hot all year long - the radiator was constantly broken so in the winter the heat was permanently on full blast, and in the summer it was like a furnace, so super hot. I found refuge in that cafe, and I stayed there for hours - started with coffee and my computer, lunch and my books and my computer, tea and my computer, the ladies who worked there and me on the computer, and them giving me motivation, and patrons asking me what I am doing, and me explaining, and them applauding - so it really takes a village for just about anything.

When I couldn’t go to the cafe and had to stay at home, I needed all the motivation I could get. As you know by now, I mostly listen to 80s music - but I needed something even stronger for the dissertation, which I saw as my entry to the PhD. Thus, Drake and Kendrick Lamar were on constant rotation. (I know they’re embroiled in a feud right now, which saddens me no end.) And if you read my dissertation on Canadian English, Drake is in there - he has lexically made a huge contribution to Canadian English! It was so cool to be able to include him.

(Photo from Complex)

So I wrote my Masters dissertation.

I found my direction.

I started applying for PhDs.

I got in.

I’m here.

The Music Highlight

You’ve probably guessed by now that for today I have Drake on. I love a lot of his songs - and here is one of my favourites.