Part I - The ‘weighted’ waiting game: being Black and applying to do a PhD

Summary

In Part I, ‘The “weighted” waiting game’, we encounter the honest reflections of students starting the process of embarking on the PhD journey. For all students there are several considerations, ranging from making the decision to undertake doctoral studies, the process of finding the right institution and supervisory team, and then attempting to secure funding. As these chapters will attest, the current arrangements disadvantage Black students. They on average wait longer for interviews, wait longer for decisions, must knock on more doors than others to get advice, and wait longer to get accepted on programmes. We describe this process as the ‘weighted waiting game’. In Sophie's chapter, as a curious young Black girl, stereotypical depictions of ‘a scientist’ failed to inspire her to imagine pursuing a PhD or a scientific career. Despite her academic ability, the rigorous entry procedure for an elite educational institution and the subsequent low admission rate of Black students served to reinforce the notion of not belonging in these spaces, invoking feelings of isolation, loneliness and self-doubt. The intersectional characteristics of being Black and a woman further underpin the feeling of being underrepresented and undervalued in her chosen field of Physics. This echoes the accounts of loneliness and sacrifice described in Nicola Rollock's 2019 exposition of 20 out of 25 Black female professors’ career journeys and the strategies employed for surviving within the higher education system (Rollock, 2019). For Katty this ‘weighted recognition’ manifests in the 50 applications and three years wait before securing a funded PhD. The emotional toll of receiving multiple rejections with no clear reason causes her to ask ‘Why am I doing this? Is it for the passion of the subject or to prove that I can?’ This is mirrored in Sigourney's powerful chapter outlining a seemingly never- ending cycle of applications, interviews and rejections, which undoubtedly weighs heavily on her and countless others who experience this process. For Esther, despite her known desires to pursue a PhD, barriers in securing funded positions, and previously encountered microaggressions necessitated a period to recover from these traumatising experiences before she could realise her full potential in higher education (waiting to recover).