A few weeks ago, I introduced myself here as an international PhD student. I spoke about my research, my excitement, and the deep gratitude I feel to be on this journey. What I did not say, at least not fully, is that I am also a mother. I am a wife. I am a woman living in a foreign country by myself while the people who make home feel like home are miles away from me.

That part matters too.

It matters because sometimes when we talk about the PhD journey, especially in formal academic spaces, we speak about the opportunity, the research, the conferences, the writing, the deadlines, and the future career we are trying to build. Those things are real, and I am grateful for them. This PhD is a literal dream come true for me. But there is another side of this journey that is not always easy to name, especially when you are still trying to survive it.

For me, that side is the sacrifice of being away from my family.

Holding Gratitude and Grief Together

It has been over six months since I have been away from my husband and my boys. Six months of waking up every day and trying to get on with it. Six months of trying to be strong because this is what I prayed for, worked for, applied for, and believed God for. Six months of trying to hold gratitude in one hand and grief in the other, because both are true at the same time.

I am thankful to be here. I know what this opportunity means. I know what it means for a girl from Mount Salem, Jamaica, to be doing a fully funded PhD at the University of Edinburgh. I know what it means to walk into spaces that my family never had access to and to study questions that are deeply connected to the lives, faith, pain, and healing of my people. I do not take that lightly.

But knowing the weight of the opportunity does not remove the ache of the sacrifice.

Some days, even the calls home are hard because hearing my children’s voices reminds me of all the moments I am missing. It reminds me that I cannot hold them when they need comfort. I cannot help with the little everyday things that mothers normally do without even thinking about it. I cannot be physically present in the way I want to be, and that is one of the hardest parts of this journey.

People often see the achievement, but they do not always see what it costs.

Being the First Means There Is No Map

I am the first person in my immediate family to pursue a PhD, but it is bigger than that. As far as I know, I am the first in my entire lineage, on both sides of my family, to walk this road. There is no one close to me I can call and ask, “How did you manage this part?” There is no family blueprint for what to do when the reading feels heavy, when the loneliness gets loud, when the academic language feels like a different world, or when your heart is split between the dream you are building and the family you are missing.

I am learning as I go along.

That sounds simple, but it is not simple when you are learning how to be a PhD student, how to be an international student, how to be alone in a new country, how to find your voice in academic spaces, and how to carry the emotional weight of being separated from the people who ground you. It is not simple when you are trying to build a new rhythm in a place where you are still learning how to belong.

For international students, there is often a quiet kind of grief that comes with movement. You are grateful for the visa, the funding, the acceptance letter, the opportunity, and the chance to become something your younger self could barely imagine. At the same time, you are grieving the familiar. You are grieving the ease of your own culture, the sounds that feel like home, the people who know you without explanation, and the daily closeness of those who remind you who you are.

Trying to find your identity in a place where you are not from is hard. Trying to do that while being away from the people who remind you who you are is even harder.

That is the truth I am sitting with this week.

Writing From Inside the Struggle

I know PhD posts are often expected to be encouraging, polished, and filled with lessons learned after the hard part has already passed. This is not one of those posts. I am not writing from the other side of the struggle. I am writing from inside it. I am writing as someone who is deeply grateful and deeply tired. I am writing as someone who is proud to be here and still sometimes wonders how long she can keep doing this without the people she loves closest to her.

And maybe that is important too.

Because if you are considering doing a PhD, especially outside of your home country, I want you to know that the sacrifices are real. They may not look exactly like mine, but this journey will ask something of you. It may ask for long nights, heavy reading, difficult writing, presentations when you feel unsure, and the courage to sit in rooms where you are still finding your confidence. It may ask you to become comfortable with solitude, and it may ask you to keep going when you feel like everybody else knows what they are doing while you are still figuring it out as you go.

It may also ask you to confront the parts of yourself that achievement cannot protect.

That is something I am learning. A PhD can open doors, but it does not make you less human. It does not remove longing. It does not cancel out motherhood, marriage, grief, homesickness, or the need to be held by your people. You do not stop being a whole person because you become a researcher. You bring all of yourself into this journey, even the parts that do not fit neatly into a student profile or academic bio.

For those of us who are first-generation, international, working-class, parents, carers, or coming from communities where this kind of academic journey is not common, the PhD is not just an intellectual project. It is also an emotional, spiritual, cultural, and sometimes ancestral stretch. It asks us to carry our own dreams and, at times, the hopes of those who never had the chance to enter these spaces.

That is beautiful, but it is also heavy.

Making Room for the Whole Researcher

I think this is where we need to make more room for the whole researcher, not just the productive one. The researcher who is reading and writing, but also parenting, grieving, migrating, caregiving, healing, adjusting, and trying to build a life in a place that may not yet feel like home.

Sometimes, postgraduate spaces can unintentionally make us feel as if we must only bring the polished parts of ourselves. We talk about our research questions, methods, funding, timelines, conferences, and publications, but not always about the emotional lives that sit underneath all of that work. Yet those parts shape how we research, how we write, how we show up, and how we keep going.

So maybe part of building healthier PhD communities is learning to ask better questions of each other. Not only, “How is the writing going?” but also, “How are you really settling?” Not only, “Have you submitted the chapter?” but also, “What kind of support do you need this season?” Not only, “What are you working on?” but also, “What is helping you stay grounded?”

For students who are away from home, especially international students, student parents, carers, first-generation researchers, and those carrying responsibilities that are not always visible, those questions can matter. They can remind us that we do not have to disappear behind the title of “PhD student” in order to be taken seriously.

That humanity is not separate from the PhD journey. It is part of it.

If This Is Where You Are Too

If you are reading this and feeling something similar, I do not want to only say, “You are not alone,” and leave it there. That phrase matters, but sometimes we need more than comfort. Sometimes we need small, practical ways to keep going when the journey feels heavier than we expected.

Here are a few things I am learning, slowly and honestly:

• Name what you are carrying. Sometimes the weight feels heavier because we have not admitted what it actually is. It may be loneliness, homesickness, guilt, fear, exhaustion, grief, or the pressure of being the first. Naming it does not fix everything, but it can stop you from blaming yourself for feeling human.
• Create a rhythm of connection before you reach breaking point. When you are away from home, it can be easy to isolate and call it independence. Try to build small rhythms of connection, whether that is a regular call with family, a check-in with another student, a faith community, a writing group, or one person who knows how to ask how you really are.
• Speak to your supervisors or support services before things become unmanageable. You do not have to wait until you are falling apart to ask for support. If the emotional weight of the PhD is affecting how you work, settle, or cope, it is okay to speak up. Asking for support is not weakness, and it does not mean you are not capable.
• Find one thing that makes the new place feel less foreign. It may be a walk you take often, a café where you can breathe, a church or community space, a meal that reminds you of home, or a simple weekly routine that helps your body understand that you are not only surviving here, you are also allowed to live here.
• Stop measuring your belonging by how confident other people look. Many people are figuring it out quietly. Some are just better at looking composed in public. You belong because you are here, because your work matters, and because your story has brought you into this space with something valuable to offer.
• Remember that progress does not always look dramatic. Some weeks, progress is a paragraph. Some weeks, progress is reading one article properly. Some weeks, progress is resting before your body forces you to stop. Some weeks, progress is simply telling the truth and choosing to try again.

These are not perfect answers. I am still learning them myself. But I do believe we need more honest conversations about what it means to carry a PhD alongside real life, especially for those of us whose journeys are shaped by migration, family separation, caregiving, faith, class, race, culture, and the pressure of being first.

A Call to Check In

So my encouragement this week is simple: check in on yourself, and check in on someone else too.

If you are a PhD student, especially one studying away from home, ask yourself what you need in this season beyond academic progress. Maybe you need rest. Maybe you need a conversation that does not revolve around work. Maybe you need to speak honestly with someone instead of saying, “I’m fine.” Maybe you need to find one small rhythm that reminds you of home. Maybe you need to stop measuring your belonging by how confident everyone else appears to be.

And if you know someone on this journey, ask them how they are doing beyond the work. Do not assume that because they are showing up, they are not struggling. Sometimes the people who look strong are simply the people who have learned how to keep moving while carrying a lot.

I am still becoming, and I am learning that becoming is not always loud, impressive, or easy to explain. Sometimes becoming looks like waking up, wiping your tears, opening the laptop, and trying again. Sometimes it looks like telling the truth, not because you have overcome everything, but because you have decided that silence should not be the price of being seen as capable.

That is where I am this week.

Still grateful, learning, missing home, while choosing to believe that this sacrifice will mean something and still hoping that by telling the truth, someone else feels less alone in theirs.

And maybe that is one of the quiet gifts of postgraduate community: not that we all carry the same story, but that we make enough room for each other to carry our stories honestly.

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