Education Blues : A Study of the Emotional Roller Coaster Rideof Ph.D. Education

The study makes use of theories of emotions to describe and analyze interviewsconducted with eight students who had recently taken part in, or were at the moment,taking part in a doctoral education at the Faculties of Humanities or Social Science atStockholm University. This study is thus a qualitative study focusing on the followingresearch questions: Firstly, how does the Ph.D education influence the studentemotionally. Secondly: do the participants in the doctoral education experienceemotionally intense situations related to contexts interpretable in terms of rites ofpassage. Thirdly: can the student, looking back, rate how the education met theexpectations the student had beforehand.Results regarding the first research question point to that the education as such – astime goes – becomes a part of the student.Results regarding the second research question indicate that doctoral educationmostly, with exceptions, is looked upon as a steady trot towards the dissertation, duringwhich you are made as a researcher.Results regarding the third research question indicate that many of the students hadvery vague ideas of what the the education would be like and thus; they had no clearpicture to measure their education against