Grand Designs: The PhD Edition
What if doing a doctorate was treated like building your dream home?
Imagine a television show where the drama isn’t about concrete foundations or bespoke staircases, but about epistemological frameworks and ethics approval…
Welcome to Grand Designs: The PhD Edition!
Just like the iconic architectural series, but with the emotional architecture of a doctoral journey at its heart.
🎬 The Premise
Each episode follows a brave soul embarking on the intellectual equivalent of building a house from scratch: a PhD. The host—a calm, cardigan-clad academic with a flair for metaphor—guides us through the highs and lows of constructing a thesis that might just change the world (or at least a niche corner of it).
🧱 The Blueprint
We meet the candidate at the start of their journey, full of hope and caffeine.
They unveil their research question with the same reverence as a couple revealing their dream home plans.
There’s talk of theoretical frameworks, methodological choices, and the ever-present spectre of ethics approval.
Cue the first montage: literature reviews, sticky notes, and the slow descent into reference management chaos.
🚧 The Build
As the research unfolds, so do the challenges.
Data collection hits snags.
Writing, more writing, re-writing, starting again, writing, more writing, re-writing (you get it).
Supervisors go on sabbatical.
The candidate questions everything: life choices, sanity, peer-review processes…
But there are triumphs too: a conference presentation that actually makes sense, a journal article accepted after only three rounds of revisions, and the moment they finally understand what “ontology” means (until the next peer-reviewer begs to differ).
🌀 The Setbacks
No ‘Grand Designs’ episode is complete without disaster.
In the PhD version, this might be a corrupted hard drive, a rejected ethics application, or a reviewer who suggests “major revisions” with the emotional delicacy of a wrecking ball.
There are tears.
There are beverages. Many, many beverages (you get it).
There is a brief flirtation with quitting to become a florist/hairdresser/insert anything here.
🏁 The Reveal
After years of intellectual labour, the thesis is complete.
The candidate emerges blinking into the sunlight, clutching a bound copy like a newborn.
Days and months pass while the examiners, um examine.
Graduation day arrives.
Robes are donned.
The host reflects on the journey: “It’s not just a thesis. It’s a testament to resilience, curiosity, and the power of asking difficult questions.” (admit it, you read that in Kevin McCloud’s voice, didn’t you)
💡 Why This Matters
PhDs are often invisible labours. Slow, solitary, and deeply personal.
But they are also creative, courageous, ground-breaking, and worthy of celebration.
So, here’s to the researchers building knowledge brick by brick by brick by brick by brick (you get it).
May your foundations be strong, your citations accurate, and your theoretical frameworks beautifully aligned.
Acknowledgement: Written with AI support
About The Author
Harmony Turnbull
I’m a speech language pathologist with over 15 years experience working with people with lifelong disability. I now work in the Department of Education, Tasmania and I am a PhD candidate at The University of Technology Sydney (UTS). You can find me on Twitter sharing and learning with the handle @SP_Harmony and LinkedIn.