Tonight I found myself running along the Southwest Coast Path. My trusty pink trail-runners were getting their 400th mud bath of the year. I was only half attempting to avoid the mudded potholes of the narrow path, with a wide open field guraded by a waist-high electric fence on one side, and brambles with peak-a-boo ocean views on the other. And it dawned on me: “Oh my God; I’m in England!”.
Almost exactly two years ago, I was sitting in my bathtub on a dreary morning February (February 2nd, 2020 to be exact) in Vancouver, checking my emails and sipping my coffee. Bleary eyed, as I always am in the morning, my eyes were immediately drawn to an email from the Commonwealth Scholarship Commission in the United Kingdom. I immediately started shaking all over, opened the email as fast as my clumsy morning thumbs would allow, and read the words that would change my life: “ I am delighted to let you know that the Commonwealth Scholarship Commission in the UK has provisionally selected you for a Commonwealth Scholarship, tenable at University of Exeter for studies leading to the qualification of PhD in Environmental Sustainability.” There was this silver flush that ran through me, and I immediately called my mom, sister, dad, and estranged ex-boyfriend with tears of joy running down my face. I had a month to quit my job, sell all my belongings, and move to the United Kingdom to start a PhD I’ve been dreaming about for the last 5 years.
As I was splashing up mud this evening, jumping across rocks to keep my ankles out of the tide, peering through the bush to marvel at the sea, I thought that my entire PhD journey has been a bit of a wild ride. I applied out of the blue after my friend MC, another academic, sent me the advertisement in 2018. I remember sitting at my friends’, Jess and Jon’s, table in Squmaish, fervishly writing my application while my friends hiked the Chief. I put my best effort in the application, which would have fit me perfectly, only two recieve a rejection letter two months later.
This rejection from the University of Exeter was my third rejection, and I was beginning to feel disheartened. There are not very many researchers who focus on artisinal and small-scale mining, and I just could not, for the life of me, get it out of my head. I wanted to learn as much as I could about this industry, really, with all of my heart. The first PhD program I applied to was at the University of Colorado in Boulder in the school of geography. I didn’t even finish the application, as I was not able to study for the GMAT and therfore did abismally. After, the professor simply stopped replying to my emails. I almost want to write it again, and study this time, to prove to myself I can do it. The second school I applied to was the University of Guelph, in Ontario. The thought of moving back to Ontario after I just arrived in British Columbia made my heart drop. I was rejected from that PhD program mostly because I was not a social scientist. This was the third PhD program I applied to, which was led by both a social scientist and a geologist, would have been absolutely perfect. I was heartbroken.
Fast forward to August 2019, and I was on Vancouver Island ready to go on a hike with one of my best friends and two of my new friends which she introduced me. We were going to do a portion of the Sunshine Coast Trail, as my friend wanted to be in the high alpine, craving some high elevations coming from Ontario. The morning before our departure, I recieved an urgent email from one of the professors from the University of Exeter. She told me that my application was very good, and that I was not accepted because the funding fell through. But she then said she learned of a funding source that I would be able to apply to: The Commonwealth Scholarship. She said it was urgent though, as I would need an acceptance from the University and be accepted within the next week to make the registration deadline.
My dear friend who had just flown all of the way to BC simultanteously recieved a call that a family member was very ill. As soon as she arrived, she had to turn right back around. She was heartbroken, and we all felt the reburverations of her pain. It required a big change in our plans, as we needed to get her all the way to the south of the island in order to catch a flight. I stayed at my friend’s home as the other two whisked our bestie to the airport with tear filled goodbyes. I concentrated all of my efforts and disappointment onto my University of Exeter application. My other two friends returned 6 hours later, teary-eyed and exhausted. We decided to take another day to recover from the sad days that transpired. Within two days I had put together another strong application while listening to the Oyster River trickle behind my friend’s sprawling trailor property. We hashed out a new plan; to do a loop of the end of the North Coast Trail and spread the trip over 4 days. The morning before we left on our backpacking trip, I interviewed for the PhD position over Zoom. The interview went well, and my friends and I packed up and drove four hours north to St Joseph’s Beach west of Port Hardy, and just before I lost cell coverage I recieved an email from one of my supervisors saying: “It was unanomously voted that you are accepted without conditions to the University of Exeter in pursuit of your PhD”. To say I was elated was an understatement. My friends and I proceeded to do the breathtaking trip, dreaming about my upcoming PhD experience in England, marvelling at the strange timing of it all, and missing our bestfriend who wasn’t able to join us.
My friends and I on the North Coast Trail <3
With that major milestone out of the way, I still had one hurdle to cross: funding. An international student pays astromnomic fees. If I was not able to recieve funding, I would be looking at paying upwards of $30,000 a year for tuition. I was not financially prepared, not did I think it would be possible, to pay these fees out of my own pocket. The funding application was due within two weeks, and I continuously worked on the application while working full time. My ex-boyfriend and I planned a last minute roadtrip to Portland, and again, I spent a significant portion of the time on patios, enjoying craft beer and snacks, perfecting the application. I had this gut feeling that I would get the funding. I remember sending my documents off right before a large stint of fieldwork, where I spent a month in northern Manitoba. After I sent the application, I looked up the statistics and they showed that there was less than a 1% chance of recieving funding. This made me question my unwavering confidence.
September went by, and so did October and November. In December, I recieved a half disappointing, and half promising email that I was waitlisted for the funding. My exboyfriend seemed a bit relieved as it meant perhaps I would stay in Vancouver, but for some reason I could not shake the feeling that I would get it in the end. When I finally recieved the confirmation in February that my dreams were coming true, it was truly astounding how certain I was that I wanted it. One might think that giving up a good career with a decent salary and all of your possessions to move across the Atlantic ocean at 33 would be a hard decision; but I had made this decision years ago when I first sought out my PhD.
Moving the remainder of my things from Vancouver to Saskatoon.
Of course, this was February 2022, right before the world shut down in a COVID-manic frenzy, which drastically changed my plans, as it changed everyone elses.