Doing A Doctorate: Don`t Suffer In Isolation

They say: you are born alone, you die alone, and you do your doctorate alone . Research doctorate has always been seen as a long and lonely journey. For most it proves to be the toughest test in their academic lives. Doctoral students are deemed to feel inherently isolated, especially DBA students from social science disciplines who can have a more isolated and less structured experience unlike PhD students that often work in groups and have more involvement with supervisors. The lack of formally organised lab meetings with fellow students in social science disciplines that can bring students closer to each other, creates a challenging environment for them in their doctoral journey. This means DBA students have to be far more self-regulated and motivated. During this long and lonely journey students face many challenges: Many doctoral candidates feel poorly looked after. Sometimes they don`t get the support they need from supervisors or they feel unsure about their progress and about the direction of their thesis. DBA students often have little contact with other research students.

Community learning approach to doctoral education, can help students cope with these difficulties. A sense of community, feeling of closeness within a social group can help doctoral students in building motivation during the darkest days. When they interact on regular basis, they can draw academic, social and emotional support from each other. Peer Refection can be a vehicle that can allow students to reflect and openly discuss matters related to their doctoral journey. Developing a learning community of DBA students and arranging informal peer review meetings once a month in person or virtually, can have a positive impact on students academic and professional progress over time.