(Preface: Tutor reading this – sorry for the non- academic tone of this entry, i just needed to blab what was on my mind)
I’m only now realising that this MA is actually really quite difficult.
It’s not the content or the tasks we’re expected to do, but more so the way I’m having to constantly reconsider how I work as a practitioner, or whether I can even call myself one.
I’ve openly expressed my feeling of impostor syndrome in lectures before (since then it’s been brought up by almost everyone else in the cohort as well), but I don’t quite understand if it’s my lack of understanding of the (very hard) research question I’ve chosen, or if it’s my own insecurities in terms of actually being a good enough researcher.
I’ve also realised that for most of my academic career my job has been to embellish the words and findings of someone else and hope that a structured compilation of different people saying the same thing will inherently prove my point and make me a “good” researcher. Whereas now I find that if I only go by what someone else has found I don’t make any real contribution at all, and my own work and place in academia becomes a load of BS*.
(*sorry i know i’m supposed to mind my manners but this was the only apt way of describing what i’m feeling)
It’s also been a massive change going from group projects into suddenly being thrust into major individual research, and it’s only now I think that I understand how isolating being on a course like this remotely can be, I feel like I’m the only one struggling with my research question and having to rethink my entire proposal and project for Unit 2 and having to start from zero again.
Albeit I have made some great friends on the course and we have conversations like this that make me feel a lot more reassured about where I am in my research stage:
(Context: The lecture about how to actually make an intervention two weeks after we’ve already submitted our proposal)
Also this sounds a bit sadist (and I promise it’s not) but I really appreciate people in big lectures being open about themselves struggling too, it really does help me feel like a massive pressure’s been taken off my shoulders in knowing that we’re all kind of in the same boat and that I don’t have to unearth a mind-blowing world- changing piece of new research right this second (even though it would be really cool if I could).
Over the last weeks I’ve really been trying to push through with my research question and find a way that I can conduct the research feasibly and not have to compromise on the process and still be passionate about the topic, but it’s really really difficult and I feel like I end up with more questions than answers and more doubts than assurances.
I’ve started to work backwards in my process, using old journal entries and powerpoints from old presentations to see what areas of VR research I was actually interested in, and why I chose this topic in the first place, rather than being overwhelmed by not only my own process but also the varying feedback I’ve received from different tutors, friends and coursemates.
That being said I’m thinking of completely reevaluating my research question and focus and finding something that uses an intervention as a tool, and not an outcome, and finding a way to make it less of a data science project and focus more on human behaviour and find validity in the qualitative outcomes. It’s a bit of a blow to my big ego as I sometimes feel like I’ve diminished my existing research and the last month has been a waste of time, but concurrently it’s also put me in the mindset to actually take time to learn about VR as a craft rather than as a research focus and look at it through its market value. I’ve also begun to question how I want to approach my own relationship with VR after university- do I want to be an artist? A research practitioner? Or a commercialist?
I also need to make sure my research has minimal ethical worries (yes I have the words biometric data in my research question but I do I even completely know what that means? NOPE.).
In the meantime I think I quite like how the change of tutor between the two units has affected me, I’ve been exposed to two completely different facilitation styles and both have been really helpful in different ways.
Helpful sources to explore for future sam:
- Technical moodle and consultations
https://moodle.arts.ac.uk/mod/tab/view.php?id=460290
https://10to8.com/book/toglohsugluvvueajb/
https://www.arts.ac.uk/colleges/london-college-of-communication/people/annie-wan