This is quite a different post from the previous few, but I have some big and important news that marks the beginning of a new chapter: the PhD Adventure Files! Join me here as I begin to chart out my PhD journey into unknown yet incredibly exciting territory…
The Big News
Well, well. It’s been a long time coming, but let’s cut to the chase: I’m going to be a doctor, Dr Rebecca A. Galbraith. Or, Rebecca A. Galbraith, PhD. Not sure which I prefer the sound of, but in both cases it is hard to imagine when, just two years ago, I said I would never do a PhD. I just couldn’t envisage it. Well, never say never.
How it came to be.
Since leaving St Andrews last summer, I’ve been in employment at a girls’ boarding school in England for the last 9 months. My primary role has been within boarding itself, though with various other roles from daytime supply teaching to instructing swimming lessons to many study, lunch and break duties, as well as other random jobs around the school. Running sports and activities in the evenings and leading weekend excursions has also come part and parcel; trips can be both fun (#kidulting), as well as a test of my hypervigilance. Each term has had it own flavour of crazy, and it can be a busy existence working from 7:10 in the morning till after 10 at night. But I’m gonna stick my neck out and say that this job, with its high energy requirements and many angles, has shown the number of plates I am capable of spinning – an exercise in looking after the small things, which ultimately serve the big things.
However, in the background since around October, I’ve had the niggling feeling that staying in the school system (eventually to migrate into teaching) was not quite right for me – at least at this stage in my life. I enjoy teaching, and believe education to be so important, but I also figured, selfishly, that I wasn’t done with my own education. More specifically, in deeply analysing my own thinking patterns, I realised that I am always in pursuit of knowledge and understanding. But further still, in the pit of my being, I knew that I was not done with intrisic discovery of the planet on which we live and that, rather than a PhD forcing a narrow focus on one really tiny thing, a PhD is an incredible opportunity to expand humankind’s knowledge on how one subject area (in this case in the Sciences) is intricately linked to everything else. By zooming into the details, we’re actually zooming out. And in this, I realised that the challenge of endurance is worth it, my very curiosity makes it worth it.
And so, in late 2023, I decided to seek out PhD programmes in my field (Earth Sciences) across the country, and apply.
This wasn’t easy; there are many steps and stages to applying to PhDs once you’ve singled out which projects, universities and potential supervisors you’d like to work with. I’ll save the technical details for another post but, in the end, after many hours of searching, visiting campuses, and chatting to contacts who were familiar with the process and the nature of undertaking a PhD, I settled on applying to 3 projects: one at the University of Oxford, one at the University of Leeds and one at the University of St Andrews. By early January 2024 I had submitted my applications, by March I had my answer. Guess which beloved location I’ll be returning to…
Doctor Who, now?
So, all being well, I am going to be a Dr, but of what, exactly?
The PhD project I successfully applied to, with the support of the supervisor, Dr Will Hutchison, will be run within the School of Earth and Environmental Sciences at the University of St Andrews and I couldn’t be more excited to be going back. However, the project I have signed up to is part of a wider group within Earth and Environmental Sciences across a number of universities in the north of the UK under the IAPETUS2 Doctoral Training Partnership. IAPETUS facilitates research in loads of cool areas of Earth and Environmental Sciences from carbon storage in the Amazon Rainforest to the impacts of mountain landslides (go check out all the projects for this year here). My own project will be focused on the following:
What does this mean?
In a nutshell, the project purpose is to use recent volcanic products trapped in polar ice cores to unravel how the stratosphere (the layer of the atmosphere responsible for global circulation) processes particles ash, gas and aerosols ejected during large volcanic eruptions – basically, the kind of eruptions that cause global climate change.
Not easy to put all that into one sentence!
The principle is not something new, however, the method I’ll be using (sulfur isotope geochemistry of volcanic sulfates) is, and should help us volcanologists to more accurately relate past eruptions recorded in the polar ice to their eruption deposits on the ground. Ultimately, the improved historic records should improve our eruption forecasting capabilities.
I’ll be focusing on two eruptions from two very different volcanoes as my means of method calibration. Firstly, the 1875 eruption of Askja (the Öskjuvatn Caldera) in the Central Icelandic Highlands. This was a fissure eruption about 100 km long which caused an awful lot of environmental damage, including widespread poisoning of farmland and livestock. I will also be looking at recent eruption deposits of Eldgjá, the largest volcanic canyon in the world, in the south of Iceland, which I’ll be visiting this August.
Secondly, I’ll be intensively studying the cataclysmic 1815 eruption of Mt. Tambora in Indonesia, a caldera eruption whose resultant crater can be seen from space and which was the largest eruption anywhere on Earth since 180 AD. Indonesia, specifically Indonesian volcanoes, have been top of my bucket list for the last 6+ years, so I’m really excited by this opportunity to link Tambora into my investigation! However, Indonesian volcanoes are also incredibly active, so I’ll have to watch out for that.
Basically, the TLDR is: after 4 years of study I’ll be a Dr of Fire and Ice in Iceland and Indonesia. Pretty cool, right?
Silver linings of being stuck in one place
I can’t explain enough how, simultaneously, I’ve learned so much by being stuck in one place through living and working in a boarding school for the past year AND how much I’m looking forward to starting my PhD in St Andrews this summer.
There have been so many silver linings I’ve uncovered in the past year, little nuggets of wisdom that have answered questions or addressed small worries I had surrounding tackling the day-to-day challenges of a PhD. I thought I’d share a few, though I may return to them in more detail on a later date. None of these are rocket science, but the small things do add up to big successes over time.
In no particular order…
- Learning (or rediscovering) that I benefit from maintaining a structured timetable – it keeps me engaged and ensures I get exercise and movement throughout the day, as well as keeping on task with all the daily things ‘to do’.
- The importance of a varied, healthy, protein-rich diet throughout the day for optimum brain and body performance (more on this another time).
- The importance of REST periods.
- Saving money by living in the middle of nowhere.
- Being ‘stuck’ also forces you to be creative and intentional with your time. Thank you, Amanda, for this one.
- Realising that I am still driven by the academic and outdoorsy life I put to one side 🙂
I could list others from across the year, but these are the crucial ones that I’ll be carrying into my PhD and beyond.
All’s Well That Ends Well.
I may just be quoting Shakespeare here because I visited his birthplace recently, or maybe it’s because the school year one month from drawing to a close and I am content to be leaving it full of gratitude. It really has been the School of Life this year with many lessons learnt and progress made. My health has improved greatly, too.
But the PhD is on the horizon starting just over 2 months from now and I am very excited to begin. It’ll be a major life change, and it took me a long time to convince myself that perhaps this is not a selfish endeavour because, as I was reminded by Fr Columba Jordan, whose recent video inspired this post, and the parallel words of one of my favourite writers, Paulo Coelho, the world benefits from individuals realising their passion and having the courage to pursue it. I hope this also encourages others to pursue their dreams, too.
Yours,
Adventure Becca 
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