Who Am I Now? The doctorate as a process of transformative learning

The doctoral journey necessarily engenders change. To produce a qualifying thesis, a student must build advanced thinking skills, subject matter expertise and communication competencies. Yet, the challenge of the process also spurs growth in creativity, something less often noted. Significant alterations in cognitive and creative capabilities do not transpire in isolation; restructuring thinking also shifts emotional and social aspects of meaning making. Indeed, the doctoral journey can stimulate a profound shift in understanding of self—one’s very identity might be transformed through it. This chapter explores how a post-doctoral individual might understand their journey as a transformative one; recognise their possibilities as a creative individual; and consider the advantages of their distinctive capacities for thriving in a state that can be described as ‘liquid modernity’.