Crisis of confidence: doing a PhD at 40

At 40 years old, I needed a change.  I was a successful in my career. I had been in a health related management role for about 10 years but had come to realise that there weren’t any promotional paths open to me.  I reported directly to a Director and I couldn’t make the leap to director level without doing an interim role.  However, those interim roles were clinical posts and as a non clinician I couldn’t apply, so I was stuck. 

Coupled with that, I had two primary aged children who were not getting the best of their mother, who was constantly tired and spent the weekend (along with my husband) catching up on tasks around the house or preparing nutritious meals for the rest of the week.  Like many modern families, our life was a bit of a hamster wheel.

Something had to change. So in 2018 my husband and I took a drastic step and resigned from our jobs and relocated 430 miles across the country to find a better balance.

I am a firm believer that sometimes you have to close a door for another one to open and that is exactly what happened.  I happened upon an advert for a fully funded PhD in a topic I was familiar with. It felt like something out in the universe was aligning.  I applied and after a very intense, detail focussed interview with a statistics test, I was accepted onto the programme.  Now, I thought I had blown that interview because of the probing and detail driven aspects that I struggled to answer and in retrospect, this  should have given me some indication of what was to come.   However, undaunted, I started my new adventure with vigour and gusto.  What I hadn’t anticipated was how my confidence would be affected by my new role.

I came with skills, good skills, honed through years in a professional environment.  I had built my success on being professional, diligent and capable.  As a young female professional, I had wanted to be taken seriously but now, in this new role, none of that seemed to matter.  I was a student at the beginning of a new career.  I wasn’t recognised for any of my previous experience or what I had learned in my previous career or for any management skills.  For a while that was freeing. But if no one is recognising your skills, you forget to recognise them in yourself.

Furthermore, I had been out of academia for 10 years, so I was up against students nearly 20 years my junior. I was out of practice with the newer software and new ways of thinking.  I had a lot of learning to do.  Coupled with that, I was surrounded by amazingly talented researchers who were all very knowledgeable and successful in their fields. However, these were different to the fields in which I had been successful, so my successes didn’t seem to count any more.

I tried to throw myself into this new world of academia.  One of the reported perks of the job was travelling to international conferences and training courses.  But as a lone female traveller, I never really enjoyed this, especially when the university travel booking department had booked me into a hotel miles away from the venue as it was a cheaper option and I had to walk in the dark along unfamiliar streets.  On the one occasion I did find my voice in a meeting where the topic of discussion was about restricting conference travel to one person per department. I raised the issue of safety for solo female travellers, only to be slapped down by an older, more senior male colleague saying that the point I was making was not valid.  Needless to say, I was even less inclined to speak up in meetings after that. My already fragile self confidence was further knocked.

This lack of self-belief was also rocked because as a student with a family, I didn’t fit in with either the students or the staff.  I didn’t have the cool hobbies. I couldn’t just go to the climbing wall or on a departmental hill walk where the networking with senior academics happened as I still had to get chores done at the weekend, the kids still needed clean clothes and food!  I didn’t want to go to the quiz night at the pub. I wanted to get home to my children and husband to find out how their day had gone.  Also I wasn’t the academic high flyer who was well read and wanted to publish by working all the hours in the week.  I was the invisible middle-aged woman that no-one saw who was grinding away day after day without anyone, other than my supervisors, taking any notice.

To a certain extent, I am still that middle-aged woman that no one sees, especially with home working.  But I am nearly at the end of my PhD, and while that is still a stressful process and I am not yet finished, there are skills that I can now recognise again.  My time management skills have helped me juggle my research and my home life.  My mental health is good because having the children and the chores mean I have to step away from the computer and take time out in the evening and at the weekend.  My diligent nature means I’ve kept going even through a global pandemic determined to finish.  My willingness to learn has taught me how to take the critique that comes with academia, accept it and use it to be better.  I’ve taken opportunities that were open to me and I have grown in confidence through them.  I have actively engaged with groups who face similar issues to me, late career-early career researchers and pre- and menopausal women’s forums.  I have reconnected with my female support networks now that pandemic restrictions have eased and I have found new networks of mums where troubles can be shared on a walk or over a coffee. 

I don’t know where my future career will take me. I am slowly regaining my confidence, but I do know that I am good role model to my girls.  I hope I can instil in them a thirst for knowledge, a confidence to face challenges and resilience to bounce back when the unexpected happens.

Rose Mae Warren

5 May 2022