Two years into a seven-year degree, I walked away. Now I no longer feel the need to deny my working-class background or change my accent to fit in
n 2018, I decided to walk away from a part-time PhD in creative writing. I was thousands of pounds down, with nothing to show for it but depression. On that day, as I drove home overand into the valley in which I was born, I opened the car windows and laughed and cried into the scent of oilseed rape. I felt as if I had removed a horrible, itchy mask and was throwing it to the wind.
I was a published writer, but without the academic backing of a doctorate, I felt that I wouldn’t be taken seriously in the arts world. I was the first person in my rural, working-class family to go to university. All my degrees had been completed part-time: a BSc on day release while I was working as a lab technician, a BA and an MA through the Open University and distance learning with Manchester Metropolitan University.
My family didn’t understand why I would expend so much energy getting degrees that wouldn’t lead to a practical, well-paid job. My dad was a bus driver who came from a long line of tenant farmers and my mum worked as a cleaner, a secretary and in factory canteens. For me, the degrees were proof that I was as good as anyone else in the arts, despite my background.
On my first official day at the University of Hull, in 2015, there was a social mixer to meet the other students, but I ended up sitting in my car, crying, because I had such severe impostor syndrome.
I knew doing the PhD would be demanding, but I hadn’t expected to be carrying around my working-class background and my social anxiety. I found it exhausting. By the time I realised that I wasn’t coping financially, it was too late to take the government grant that would have taken pressure off me. I had wanted to avoid getting into debt.
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