Cognitive Hardiness in the Face of Uncertainty: PhD-ing from Home During a Global Pandemic

ABSTRACT

Commencing a PhD is not always the easiest decision, especially amidst a global pandemic. Despite knowing this, commencing a PhD from home was a decision I chose to make when I was uncertain about my future after completing my Master's. Within this chapter, I discuss how learning the concept of cognitive hardiness proved to be useful to me during this journey. Cognitive hardiness comprises commitment, control, and challenge. I was also fortunate to have supportive supervisors and opportunities to engage in coaching, as well as formal and informal mentoring. In addition to discussing my experiences within this chapter, I also reached out to a colleague who is completing a Master's by Research to assess if there were any points of comparison in our experiences of commencing our studies from home. I hope the research and reflections from our experiences will help other early career researchers and academics develop a variety of coping mechanisms to maintain control, remain committed, and embrace challenges within the current environment, given the possibility that the world of academia has been changed forever. © The Editor(s) (if applicable) and The Author(s), under exclusive license to Springer Nature Singapore Pte Ltd. 2022.