KATIE MARIE

I’m so pleased to write this post!

As many of you will already know, I’ve been working hard this year and last (and daydreaming about this for years) to achieve an important part of one of my life’s goals.

Said life goal = to complete a PhD.

Last year I started my application, it took a lot of work, and the application itself was a massive project. Imposter syndrome hit hard, and my self-doubt was at its worst.

My biggest concern starting out was whether I would be allowed to do this?

I completed a law degree, a post-graduate diploma in Legal Practice, and a master’s degree. The major theme in my education was that it was all legal. I had done some stuff afterwards, a qualification in HR (for work), a Forensic Science A Level (for fun) that kind of thing. But all my heavy-hitting qualifications were in law.

So, who the hell was I, trying to do a PhD in Creative Writing? Of course, they would laugh me out of the building or tell me I needed to do another master’s degree.

I’d have happily done another Master’s degree, but those things are expensive and because I already have a master’s degree, I’m not eligible for a Student Loan to do another one.

But I figured it could hurt to ask, so I sent some emails and had some reassuring encouragement back, so I put together a robust application.

I was going to study disability representation in the Horror Genre.

I chose this because I am passionate about disability advocacy, being Neurodiverse myself and having experienced ignorance, bigotry, and assumptions. I put a lot of my time and effort into countering this and trying to raise awareness of the social model of disability. I’m also absolutely obsessed with horror and wanted to smush them together.

As you may already know if you’ve read my previous post about this, I was successful on paper, I then had a terrifying interview and was successful again!! Holy shit it was working! Then there was an issue with my references, because not only were all my previous qualifications in law, but I also did them in 2005-2014, which means I started over a decade ago and finished my master’s nine years ago. It’s been a while, so finding my old lecturers etc was impossible.

But after a very stressful few weeks, I was successful again!

And I have now started.

Officially started.

I attended an induction last month and had a fantastic time.

I can’t wait to keep going!

Heres some pictures from my induction 🙂