Reflections on the Power of Cohorts and Communities of Practice in PhD Mentorship: My Personal Experience
Reflections on the Power of Cohorts and Communities of Practice in PhD Mentorship: My personal Experience
The PhD journey is often described as a “lonely journey” a sentiment echoed by many scholars and reinforced by faculty members at the onset of doctoral programs. New PhD students are typically forewarned about the isolation that can accompany the pursuit of advanced academic research. This characterization is intended to prepare students mentally and emotionally for the challenges ahead. However, my experience during the PhD program particularly during the COVID-19 pandemic revealed the transformative power of informal learning structures such as cohorts and communities of practice (CoPs). These models promote peer-to-peer learning, collaborative growth, and emotional support, significantly mitigating the sense of isolation. This blog post offers personal reflections on how these informal networks helped me and can help others navigate the PhD journey more effectively and achieve timely completion.
Understanding Cohorts and Communities of Practice in the PhD Journey
In the context of a PhD program: A cohort refers to a group of students who begin their doctoral studies at the same time, often within the same faculty or department. They typically progress through foundational coursework together, learning institutional guidelines, research expectations, and building early academic relationships. A community of practice (CoP), on the otherhand, is a more fluid, often informal group of individuals who share a common interest or practice such as research methodology or discipline and learn collaboratively through regular interaction. At our Business School, cohorts ranged from Cohort 1 to Cohort 8, (once in a while a new cohort is created for newly admitted PhD students across the Business School), each representing a different stage of the entire PhD process cycle from concept development to proposal writing, data collection, analysis, and dissertation defense. Each stage offered valuable shared experiences, and learning often emerged through the collaborative exchange of knowledge among diverse PhD student peers within the cohort or across the cohorts.
How Learning Takes Place Within Cohorts
Learning within a cohort can occur through formal or informal structures: In formal cohorts, the institution may organize structured sessions such as lectures, tutorials, or workshops often led by faculty or field experts. These sessions are scheduled regularly (weekly or biweekly) and supported by the administration. Informal cohorts, however, are peer-initiated and self-managed. These groups rely heavily on self-study and consensus-based planning. My reflections focus on this informal model, which played a pivotal role in my learning journey, especially during the pandemic.
My Experience with Informal Peer-Led Cohorts
When the COVID-19 pandemic hit, in-person academic interaction came to a halt. Like many others, I began to feel the strain of academic isolation. In response, a few of us began reaching out to one another via WhatsApp, initially just to check in and share experiences. These small efforts grew into regular Zoom meetings, where we presented our work, exchanged feedback, and encouraged one another. We eventually developed a rotating system: each month, one member would present their work, while others offered structured feedback. The presenter would then respond to the feedback and, in future sessions, report on how previous suggestions had been incorporated. This format created accountability, fostered growth, and kept us intellectually engaged despite the challenges of lockdown. We supplemented our sessions with external resources such as YouTube videos on research methods and discussed them collectively. This informal cohort became a lifeline during a difficult time and proved to be an invaluable learning platform.
Joining a Larger Community of Practice
As our informal cohort matured, we were invited to join a larger, online PhD mentorship initiative launched by one of our senior mentors, Prof. Ntayi. During the lockdown, Prof. Ntayi introduced an online tutorial group called “The PhD Students Community,” later renamed “Socratic Research for Community Development.” This initiative became a continental hub for PhD mentorship, featuring weekly Sunday morning sessions. These included student presentations, peer discussions, and expert lectures on topics like systematic literature reviews, philosophical paradigms, quantitative and qualitative analysis, and discussion of results. Today, this online CoP has grown significantly, attracting doctoral candidates from across Africa. It is now a respected resource for mentorship, training, and community engagement. We remain deeply grateful to Prof. Ntayi for his vision and leadership in transforming our PhD experience from a solitary journey into a shared, dynamic process of collective learning.
Starting Your Own Community of Practice
If you’re considering forming your own CoP, begin by identifying like-minded peers those at a similar stage in their PhD journey or sharing common research interests or methodologies. Whether you're in the same department, studying similar topics, or using the same research approach, common ground is crucial.
Here are a few tips:
1. Start small: Use platforms like WhatsApp or Zoom to initiate informal check-ins or discussions. PhD students often feel isolated or overwhelmed, especially in the early stages. Starting small removes the pressure of formality and allows relationships to grow organically. WhatsApp can be used for quick daily or weekly check-ins, sharing motivational quotes, or troubleshooting challenges like literature searches or supervisor communication. Zoom (or similar tools) allows for short virtual meetups where students can share updates, vent frustrations, or offer support.
2. Find a rhythm: Choose a regular time for meetings (e.g., biweekly or monthly) and ensure consistency. Consistency is key in peer mentorship. A regular meeting schedule helps maintain momentum in research progress, build accountability, because if you know you’ll report back to peers, you're more likely to stay on track, normalizes peer mentoring as part of the PhD routine, not as an extra burden. Depending on your group’s workload, I would advise to organise biweekly meetings to provide enough time for progress without being overwhelming.
3. Rotate responsibilities: Allow each member to present and receive feedback. With this approach, everyone becomes both a mentor and a mentee; there is mutual development of key academic skills like presenting research, giving/receiving critique, and facilitating discussions. We used to do while going round for each attendee to point out critical issues in a presentation. With this arrangement, each member has a chance of becoming a presenter, a discussant and a note taker to help a colleague take note while one is presenting.
4. Bring in experts: If possible, invite experienced academics or professors to guide sessions. In the weekend session every Sunday morning, various expert professors from universities in Uganda and across the globe are hosted and make presentations in their fields of expertise and thereafter a question-and-answer session is organised. This has been the trend that has kept the momentum and tremendous growth of the forum.
5. Use external resources: Share and discuss books, articles, or videos on relevant topics, especially those that stimulate logic and philosophical debate and intellectual discourse to greater heights. During our time, journal articles and books would be shared amongst us and each would present a summary on key issues that the book or articles advocate for. The discussion could be organised around themes or topics of mutual interest. The PhD WhatsApp community group opened by prof. Ntayi and we later joined and developed has now become a model for informal, voluntary learning, and continues to thrive through early morning Sunday sessions.
What Makes a Cohort or Community of Practice Successful?
Success in these groups hinges on mutual respect, active listening, regular communication, and dedicated participation. Here are a few principles that kept our group effective:
1. Be consistent: Consistency is the backbone of a productive academic peer group. Regular attendance and communication build trust, commitment and reliability within the group. It allows members to track each other’s progress, build continuity in discussions (e.g., ongoing feedback on a dissertation chapter), and create a supportive academic routine. Having regular communication, whether via emails, chats, or physical meetings helps suffocate shared challenges early, such as burnout, whether its writer’s block or issues related to methodological dilemmas, which the group can help address through shared communication.
2. Support each other: Constructive feedback and encouragement are vital. PhD work can be isolating, so peer affirmation and thoughtful critique are incredibly powerful. This can be achieved through giving constructive feedback say during draft presentations or learning new ideas together through creativity.
3. Be flexible: Sometimes its important to understand that not everyone can attend every session, but encourage transparency and accountability, since doctoral life is full of unpredictable demands including illness and family commitments, especially those pursuing it in their home countries who cannot easily skip family engagements. Others might be to do with teaching. Being flexible and accountable enhances individual respect and group cohesion. Most importantly, be kind. A supportive environment fosters growth, reduces isolation, and makes the PhD journey a shared adventure rather than a solitary pursuit.
Final Thoughts
The idea that the PhD journey must be lonely is not a universal truth, as argued by some scholars and discussed on several PhD forums across the globe. It’s a narrative that can always be challenged and changed. Cohorts and communities of practice, like in this blog post, offer a powerful alternative. Through shared learning, mutual support, and intentional collaboration, PhD students can not only survive but thrive in their academic journeys. Whether you're just starting your doctoral studies or are well into your research, or nearing completion, consider forming or joining a peer community. The benefits extend far beyond academics and cement critical academic networks thereafter, as they offer connection, resilience, and a renewed sense of purpose.
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