Education Blues : A Study of the Emotional Roller Coaster Rideof Ph.D. Education

Abstract: The study makes use of theories of emotions to describe and analyze interviewsconducted with eight students who had recently taken part in, or were at the moment,taking part in a doctoral education at the Faculties of Humanities or Social Science atStockholm University. This study is thus a qualitative study focusing on the followingresearch questions: Firstly, how does the Ph.D education influence the studentemotionally. Secondly: do the participants in the doctoral education experienceemotionally intense situations related to contexts interpretable in terms of rites ofpassage. Thirdly: can the student, looking back, rate how the education met theexpectations the student had beforehand.Results regarding the first research question point to that the education as such – astime goes – becomes a part of the student.Results regarding the second research question indicate that doctoral educationmostly, with exceptions, is looked upon as a steady trot towards the dissertation, duringwhich you are made as a researcher.Results regarding the third research question indicate that many of the students hadvery vague ideas of what the the education would be like and thus; they had no clearpicture to measure their education against.