My PhD Program Rejected Me, But...

I'm Back! And Here's What I've Been Up To

I’m finally back from my month-long break and have some news to share.

Before I left for my break, a giant pit in my stomach grew. My sleep was compromised, I started to raid the fridge at 1 am and the weekends filled me up with dread because I was too stressed out to go out with friends.

It didn’t take a genius to figure out what was bugging me: the outcomes of my PhD application. For context, I applied in October and decisions were announced during the first week of December.

I boarded the plane in mid-November but my mind was still very much at work. Every day leading up to that week of December sucked and I was determined to stay miserable until I got the news.

Then the news came on the 7^th of December.

I was pacing around a hotel room in Beijing while my partner scrolled on her phone in bed. This was the day after hiking some of the steepest sections of The Great Wall so the only thing that kept me pacing was the anxiety.

Then my phone buzzed. A notification from Gmail.

“I would like to express our sincere appreciation for your interest in joining our institution and for submitting your application…”

There was no need for me to read on. After skimming all the BS about the program being “highly competitive” (only a handful of people applied to my knowledge) and “extremely selective”, (I had straight-A grades and a thesis mark in the top 10% of the cohort) I archived the email.

“You wanna go eat?” I said to my partner.

***

The strangest thing happened over breakfast after my rejection email. My partner looked over at me then back at her plate, at me then back at her plate before saying:

“I don’t think you’re crazy but you sure look like you are.”

I had a beaming smile on my face.

“Aren’t you even a little bit sad about it?”

I kept smiling.

If this were a Nicholas Cage film my partner would’ve slapped me just to check that the screws weren’t loose. By all counts, I should’ve been sulking or fighting back the urge to rob the minibar of its Brandy, but the disappointment only lasted half an hour before a huge wave of relief and excitement followed.

“I mean think of all the cool shit I could do in those four years meant for a PhD!”, I said, “For all I know they’ve just signed my parole.”

The truth is, after a week of thinking about it during my vacation, my intention when I started my career wasn’t to end up in academia. If anything, my main goal when I started my English Degree was to rob the academy of all its insights before releasing them for free to my audience.

But like some people who ended up in Law, investment banking or running a money laundering scheme at the back of an Italian restaurant, I had my “oh shit” moment after I completed my Honours year.

These paths are slippery slopes. I started off with the goal of completing my B.A., then… Wouldn’t it be nice to have a thesis to my name? Then wouldn’t it be nice to have a doctorate? Then wouldn’t it be nice to join the junior faculty? Then wouldn’t it be nice to…

Just like a drug, academia soon darkened my complexions, drained my optimism and convinced me that there was something noble about hooking students up to mountains of debt while fighting receding hairlines.

Even worse, I turned my back on what I loved the most: READING. A lot of research didn’t actually involve reading books I wanted to read. It was all about chasing down references and tedious minutiae so over time I associated reading with dread.

Hence, the rejection had quite an unexpected effect on me.

Day 1: I started to see colour and joy on a cold sunny morning in smog-ridden Beijing.

Day 2: I started thinking about you guys and how excited I was to put all of my time and energy into giving everyone a literary education.

Day 3: The hooligan I’ve repressed for those 5 years in academia came back and I can’t wait to have more fun both in work and life.

Day 4: I couldn’t wait to spend the rest of my vacation with complete presence and excitement.

This feeling of joy and optimism grew a bit every day. When the plane touched down in Melbourne again, I was thrilled to be back at work.

In short, big things are coming and today I’ll let you in on one of them. Long story short, TEDx Oxford recently invited me to speak on the 2^nd of Feb for their 2025 conference. So, forgive me for dropping off the map last week. I’ve just finished the first round of rehearsals and it’s been a dream come true.

I also have big plans for this newsletter and podcast that I’ll announce soon.

But for now, that was an update on what used to be a giant chunk of my life

Until next week

Robin