(This is part of a series of conversations I’ve had with PhD students, doctors and teachers here at the Department of Archaeology and Ancient History in Lund during the summer of 2022. For some the original conversation were in English, but for some in Swedish. Since Lena worked in Oxford for many years I asked her to write up her answers after our conversation.)
Lena Strid is a PhD student in Historical Archaeology at the department and she’s done her four years and is on an extension. Lena and I have been friends since we met at the first day of the first course of archaeology here in Lund and she kindly offered to answer questions about her PhD experience with an eye toward hopeful applicants.
“When did you decide you wanted to do a PhD?”
”I was working as an animal bone specialist in England, and while the work itself was very fun, the combination of poor wages (a case all over English archaeology, unfortunately) and living in an expensive town meant that I had an eye out for other jobs. And the only options in the job ads were either as lower-paid assistant to someone at my own level, or comparatively well-paid university jobs that required a PhD.”
”How did you go about applying?”
”I kept an eye out for notices on PhD positions in Sweden (PhDs in England are very badly funded, and I wouldn’t recommend it unless you are already well-off) as they came up on a mailing list I’m on. I think I applied in total for eight positions over a six year period, learning something new about the process for each time. For example, you are expected to include a timeline for how you go about to structure your PhD over the four year period (this is not included in the instructions, btw) and that you cannot apply with the same research project a second time unless you show that you have kept on developing your project since last time, maybe done a short preliminary study (this is also not included in the instructions). It was not possible for me to do extra research since I was working full-time in a different country, so I had to shelve that project and come up with new one.
”A couple of projects later, sometimes shortlisted for interviews, sometimes not, I applied with my current research project to Uppsala, but fell through. They only gave written feedback for the shortlist, so I called them about feedback, since I wanted to know if I should develop this further, or just cancel it. Then, just a few days after, I found out that Lund had soon-closing job advert, and I sent in the same application, and figured that if Lund had the same objections as Uppsala, it was something I needed to work on, otherwise I could try to develop the project further. And to my great surprise they liked it so much they offered me a position as a PhD student.”
”How did you choose the topic for your dissertation after discarding earlier plans?”
”I came across an open lecture in Oxford on using biochemical analysis to do species identification for parchment in Medieval manuscripts, and as usual, all data came from England, France, Germany and Italy. So I asked the professor if they had any data from Scandinavia, and he said they didn’t. And following the saying that if you want something done well you have to do it yourself, I started working on a research proposal for a PhD. We stayed in touch and I’m loosely affiliated with his research group.”
”Do you have any tips for anyone thinking about applying for a Phd?”
”Don’t apply for anything unless you have a real passion for it: it’s gruelling work, and sometimes only your own curiosity for your subject will be the thing motivating you to keep going.
”Start networking as soon as you have a vague idea of what you’re interested in: join organisations that are in the same field and go to their meetings. For example, Environmental Archaeology (archaeobotany, zooarchaeology, geoarchaeology, landscape studies) (https://envarch.net) , Roman finds group (artefact studies) (https://www.romanfindsgroup.org.uk ) and there are more.
”Use your contacts in the specialist fields (see above) and in university – don’t feel shy to reach out to your lecturers – to ask about feedback for your research project. This is absolutely vital! You want to know if they think it’s viable (Do you have too little data? Too much data? Is someone else working on the same idea?) and if there are important things you need to be aware of when doing research on this question, such as material accessibility (If your material is in a museum in a different country, will they allow you to see it? Is the museum planning a long-term closure of their storage facilities for building repairs?) and language concerns (i.e. if important works in that field are in German, can you read German?).
”Don’t get beat down over rejections. As long as you are not rejected over missing documents or other formalia, it all depends on which projects you are competing with. Sometimes you are up against several great projects, sometimes your project is the better one in that year. If your project proposal is rejected, ask them for feedback! It could be something important, or it could just be that it’s a bad fit for that department.”
”Apart from the ordeal of finding stuff out the hard way about the application process, what has been difficult and what has been fun along the way?”
”It’s a long slog, and planning for four years can be really tough. The timeplan needs to be continously revised, as life will throw obstacles in your way (not usually as big as a worldwide pandemic, but still). The main problems has been unexpected mental health issues (depression) that has set me back timewise, and the pandemic that caused delays in lab work and the final parts of my data gathering. The fun bit has been opportunities to go to conferences and meet up with people interested in my research (remember: if you go to a conference abroad, set aside a few days for sightseeing!), and interesting chats with my colleagues at the department.”
“Now that you’re almost at the end of your PhD, how does it feel?”
”I’m fed up with it and I just want it to be over. However, I’m still excited about my research questions and I do want to let other people know what I found out. The main problem now is funding. Despite being employed by the university, the state considers PhD students students, and as such we are not eligible for the dole. It’s extremely difficult to concentrate on research if you’re working full-time, and part-time jobs are difficult to get since employers assume you will leave them soon for a full-time archaeology job. I’ve been lucky to have been awarded two grants, so I will try to eke out that money as long as I can, and remember that a PhD needs not to be perfect, but good enough to be submitted!”
Thank you for your time, Lena, and for answering all these questions!