I’m not your typical doctoral student, I have tattoos and piercings, I run a fashion blog and I’m actually not that intellectual (I hated school and would often play truant) so surely there would have been a careers path better suited to me. At 26 (24 when I applied), I’m quite young to be doing a PhD. I’m also quite young to be certain that this is, without a shadow of a doubt, what I want to do. I went to university almost out of a sense of obligation, it was the thing you did after A levels, all my friends were doing it and I didn’t want to be left out, plus it meant I could put off becoming a ‘real adult’ for a few more years. I picked a subject I enjoyed, without much thought for what it would mean for my future, it wasn’t until I did my masters that I developed a passion and interest in the politics of the body and the marketplaces effect on the plus size body, which is my current area of research and I knew I wanted to make a contribution in this area larger than just my blog as I am inherently passionate about this topic as it something which affects my everyday life.
