A Day in the Life of a PhD Student

Our family has been in Scotland for two and a half months and it's been just over a month since I officially matriculated at the University of St Andrews, moved into my workspace, and began life as an 'official' PhD student.  Life has more or less fallen into a rhythm and with Joseph back in school after the two-week fall holiday break, this morning I thought I would document an average day in the life of a PhD student - or at least this particular PhD student.

With Joseph's primary school on the way to the university, I get to walk him to school each morning.  It's getting darker earlier and earlier - in December the sun will rise around 9 AM and set around 3 PM! - so on our walk we get to see some great early morning color.

A small gate out of our one-street neighborhood opens into this field, which has a trail to Joseph's school.  Along the way, the path narrows as we pass behind the single neighborhood between our house and Canongate Primary School.

We've loved Canongate.  Joseph's class has been a great fit for him, and a number of other families in the divinity school have kids here as well.  I was counting the other day and came up with five other kids in P1 (the Scottish equivalent of kindergarden) who have parents who either are or were in full-time ordained ministry. 

Dropping this guy off is a great start to the day.  The kids line up outside the door to their classroom (each class has a door outside which is then locked for the rest of the day).  He always makes me wait and wave to him through the window before I head off to my school. 

After about a five minute walk to Joseph's school it's another 15 minutes until I reach my final destination.  Parking is at a premium downtown and we only have one car, and the walk is a great start to the day.  With the sun out this morning I decided to take the Lade Braes which has an entry point just behind Canongate.

It's a beautiful walk and the leaves are still turning here.

The Lade Braes runs right beside the Kinness Burn.  The river a little swollen now because we've had a rainy past few days.  Just on the other side you can see a bit of the Botanic Gardens, which are right next to Joseph's school.

I pass by our favorite park, Cockshaugh and then the path crosses over one of the main streets in St Andrews.  To the south the elevation drops and there's a great view of that part of town and farm land just beyond. 

The Lade Braes continues on, even though now I'm almost to the center of town.  At some points it gets pretty narrow:

Before it ends pretty much at the center of town:

Someone told me before we moved here that the actual town of St Andrews was only three streets, and he was right.  This is South Street (the other two are Market St and North St) and I head east on my way to the divinity postgraduate offices.  Along the way I pass by St Mary's College, which is the Divinity School and where the library, professor offices, and seminar rooms are.

The name of the building that holds the postgraduate offices is the Roundel.  It's at the very end of South Street.  The first door on the left is the entrance.

You can just see Rule's Tower in that picture.  But when you walk around the other side of the building you see this:

That's the ruins of St Andrews Cathedral.  On the other side of that is the North Sea.  My office doesn't face that direction, which is probably for the best in terms of my work efficiency!  The divinity postgraduates are truly blessed to have such a great building in such an incredible location.  The Roundel provides a great community where students can engage one another and learn from each other.  

Speaking of my office, I work on the third floor (2nd floor in the UK as the ground floor is 0 over here) in the Black Room.  I share it with three other PhD's and there's a small side room where a visiting scholar has a private office.  Here's my desk:

Not quite as many books as I had in the office in Starkville but still quite a few.  The divinity school library is a great resource but it's nice to have much of what I need on hand and to not have to worry about books that I need being recalled by other folks in the university community.  The mandatory pastor's continuing education budget that I had at FPC was put to good use!

And here's my view for most of the next eight hours:

Getting into a rhythm of reading and writing for that much time a day has taken a little getting used to.  Pastoral life was great but having uninterrupted time to study was often hard to come by, particularly the last year and a half in Starkville when I was serving as the interim senior pastor.  That experience makes me all the more grateful for what I get to do right now.  Today I'm reading a book by Paul Molnar on T.F. Torrance in preparation for a chat that I get to have with him on Tuesday about the direction of my dissertation. 

Every once in a while I'll need to run over to the St Mary's Library, and today is one of those days.  I was looking for a couple of essays and found them easily enough here:

On Wednesdays the theology students get together for a seminar in College Hall just off of the St Mary's quad.  This semester we're reading through one part (IV.2 for those of you keeping up at home) of Karl Barth's multi-volume Church Dogmatics.  I tried to sneak in today to take a picture but it was locked.  But in this picture it's straight ahead.  This semester Professor John Webster leads the conversation and then next semester Professor Alan Torrance, my supervisor, will do the same.  There are some sharp people studying at St Mary's and I'm encouraged and challenged by them. 

About five o'clock is quitting time for me.  On the advice of many others I'm treating my academic work much like a job and working on basically a 9 - 5 schedule.  It started raining this afternoon and I got a text message from my wonderful wife with an offer to pick me up.  That was good to hear, since I'd forgotten my raincoat.  And here she is, navigating the Scottish roads in our manual Citroen C4 like a pro!