Confirmation of Candidature digital seminar preparation

Nowadays Australian Universities have a Confirmation of Candidature (CoC) six months into a PhD program rather than toward the end. Mine occurs in under a month 😱

Although comfortable with presenting my research proposal as a digital seminar, I am conflicted around the balance of learning to expertise. I strongly suspect I have learned more in six months than I am able to give to a body of knowledge.

That causes old Mr Imposter Syndrome to raise his ugly head. Luckily I have strategies to flick him off but he is persistent and keeps crawling back to whisper shit into my ear!

One thing I have always done is label to stable: by speaking your vulnerability you grow in strength. So, I speak my fears out now in a conversation with myself to ensure I stabilise my inner terror AND provide solace to other PhD students that this is a normal and expected part of the PhD journey.

My fears about presenting my research proposal:

• What if I'm not actually intelligent enough to complete a PhD?
• What if the assessors at CoC ask me questions about my project that I cannot answer?
• What if I have misunderstood the reading of my philosophical bases?
• What if my love of creativity and difference in presentation style falls flat?
• What if the assessors are extreme right wing traditional intellectuals?
• What if I pronounce names or words wrong?

I have trained my mind to overcome Imposter imposed questions by flipping and asking the opposite, like this:

• What if I am intelligent enough and want to do another PhD, or Masters, or undergrad degree?
• What if the assessors at CoC give me positive feedback about things they hadn't considered?
• What if I have fully grasped the meaning of my philosophical bases?
• What if my love of creativity and difference in presentation style starts a new trend?
• What if the assessors love the idea of organic intellectualism?
• What if they find out they've been pronouncing Gramsci incorrectly?

Positive Psychology and Emotional Intelligence tell us that once you change your thoughts around a given situation or issue, you change your feelings which change your behaviours. If we can flip houses, cars, or furniture, then we can flip our thoughts too.

I'm flipping the CoC seminar presentation too and starting it with a bed time story: a poem designed to create deep reflection and personal change. I am relaxed and in control because I have been involved in resistance to the status quo since I was a child....the only difference is that now I research and put peer reviewed reading and academic labels to it. Like I've always said to my supervisees, "part of the definition of being a professional is having the ability to clearly articulate that which you do."

Dr Bayliss coming right up 👩🏼‍🎓