Learning on ScreenSurviving PhDs
As we looked for participants, the Guardian’s ‘Anonymous Academic’ who had started the public discussion, ‘came out’ as Nicola Rolfe, who had recently completed a physics PhD, and she agreed to be one of our interviewees. Meanwhile, Mark Holloway had interpreted his brief and come up with a script about Simon, a new PhD student whose optimism quickly gives way to anxiety and depression when he realises what a difficult subject he has taken on, how little direction he can expect from his supervisor, and how the challenges of life, money and relationships cannot be avoided. Simon struggles on, refusing to seek help until his friend Rachel, a more experienced PhD student (who has featured in a number of the other videos) presses a phone into his hand and insists that he makes that call to the counselling service.
We needed locations for shooting our drama scenes, including a working university library for some of the scenes where Simon and Rachel run into each other. We wanted real library activity in the background for authenticity, but what university would let us risk disturbing users? In the end we found a willing library, and the users disturbed us more than we disturbed them, with sudden surges of people through noisy doors, uncannily timed whenever we started shooting a scene by the entrance. As always, video production is a mixture of high thoughts and banal practicalities.
The PhD Survival Video was completed in time for the spring term, and in March Birkbeck kindly hosted a screening and discussion by way of a formal launch. This was a rare opportunity for me, as the producer, to see an audience responding to one of our videos: all too often we send them out to universities and hear no more unless we beg for crumbs of feedback. The room was packed, mainly with PhD students from Birkbeck and elsewhere. There were some tears and many nods of recognition as the story of Simon’s descent into depression unfolded. There was laughter at the occasional touches of humour in the script. And there were many comments and questions at the end. One student emailed her appreciation afterwards, saying ‘It was really refreshing to hear the emotional aspects being articulated and although I did not know anyone there, I felt very much part of a nascent community.’ The video is now in use in a growing number of UK universities, and I hope it is helping doctoral students to feel connected to a community.
Stephen Engelhard
