This is a fantastic post, Vicky! Thank you for these insights. Just the other day, I was discussing this with someone. I realised that in my PhD experience (now in my 10th year) that I have not ever asked for help. Instead, I spend hours, days sometimes, struggling to figure something out. Maybe it's something simple in Word or maybe it is a new concept I am trying to learn and write about and I cannot understand it. Those in my cohort, however, always reach out to me for help. I welcome that. I feel honoured that they look to me for the assistance, that they trust me for it, and I absolutely stand by them and help them. It never occurs to me to reach out to them, though, and that is what I was musing about the other day. I think the issue for me is feeling that I would be an enormous bother to others. Maybe others struggle with that, too?
Thank you so much for your comment and kind words!
You are right, sometimes we struggle to ask people in our own cohort - it happened to me once that I was hesitant to ask, and another person in my cohort that I asked for help told me they have the same question and they were also hesitant to ask! So then we mustered up the courage to ask a third person in our group, who eventually could help us!
Once again, thank you so much and I am happy we can share our experiences in our PhDs!
This is a fantastic post, Vicky! Thank you for these insights. Just the other day, I was discussing this with someone. I realised that in my PhD experience (now in my 10th year) that I have not ever asked for help. Instead, I spend hours, days sometimes, struggling to figure something out. Maybe it's something simple in Word or maybe it is a new concept I am trying to learn and write about and I cannot understand it. Those in my cohort, however, always reach out to me for help. I welcome that. I feel honoured that they look to me for the assistance, that they trust me for it, and I absolutely stand by them and help them. It never occurs to me to reach out to them, though, and that is what I was musing about the other day. I think the issue for me is feeling that I would be an enormous bother to others. Maybe others struggle with that, too?
Hi Taylor,
Thank you so much for your comment and kind words!
You are right, sometimes we struggle to ask people in our own cohort - it happened to me once that I was hesitant to ask, and another person in my cohort that I asked for help told me they have the same question and they were also hesitant to ask! So then we mustered up the courage to ask a third person in our group, who eventually could help us!
Once again, thank you so much and I am happy we can share our experiences in our PhDs!
These are excellent tips for everyone in any field, Vicky! Thank you very much! I will make sure Maggie and Nikolas also read this!
Thank you so so much - I feel so happy and honored that my niece and nephew will read it too! 👏🏻👏🏻👏🏻👏🏻👏🏻👏🏻