BY G. CONNOR SALTER

One of our staff members, G. Connor Salter, spent 2024-2025 studying a master of letters at the University of St. Andrews in Scotland, United Kingdom. After being invited to write about his experience, he shared this story about one of the connections he made during his studies.

Being accepted for a PhD at the University of St. Andrews can, as Allan Mjomba Majalia well knows, bring “a mixture of both joy and also a bit of worry.”

Since 2022, Allan has been studying indigenous African fisher folk through St. Andrews’ School of Geography and Sustainable Development. As he discussed in a February 2025 episode of the Centre for Minorities Research Podcast, his research explores how people in Ghana and Keyan use traditional knowledge to fish, knowledge that comes through their communities over formal schooling and is therefore often undervalued. This writer had the pleasure of interviewing Allan for the podcast, but the published version contained about a third of the material we covered in our sprawling conversation. With his permission, here are highlights from his PhD journey and his advice for postgraduate students considering PhD work.

Before St. Andrews, Allan studied forestry for his bachelor’s at Edgerton College and his master’s at the University of Oxford. He became interested in fishery topics after a marine governance project in Mombasa showed him ways fishing communities’ concerns paralleled concerns that forestry communities face.

Like many students, Allan applied multiple times for his PhD, getting accepted on the third try. He later realized this was not a mark against him, since many behind-the-scenes factors affect each application. For example, international students often end up on waiting lists based on how many students from the same country have been accepted. “I think it was just a matter of time, rather than a matter of the quality,” he reflected.

Feedback on those early applications did help Allan reframe his PhD proposal. “I think the first way I fashioned it, it was pre-COVID, so I had a sort of proposed it in the lens of looking at three sites, specifically in Kenya, that focused on coastal reserves, particularly mangrove sites,” he remembered. Sites in Ghana and Kenya proved to be better fits for the project.

When Allan was accepted, “it was a bittersweet sort of moment.” He had full funding for three years, but it meant living in Scotland without his wife, then expecting their first child. Eventually, they determined they could make the long distance work, with regular communication over WhatsApp.

Getting a student visa proved more complicated than Allan expected, with delays that continued past the date that accepted PhD students were expected to start. “I worked a month and a half online before reporting physically as I waited for my visa,” he recalled. “I’m highly grateful for the school and my supervisors, who went the extra mile to actualize this.”

When he finally arrived in Scotland, Allan found the experience challenging and exciting. Some cultural differences were enjoyable. “I think the transport system, and many of the social amenities, are quite efficient compared to where I’m coming from, so I’m grateful for that.”

Other differences, particularly the shift to socializing in a country that prized individualism over collectivism, proved complicated. “There’s a cultural difference that’s quite outright: everyone keeps themselves here,” he reflected. “I come from a culture where everyone sort of wants to know everyone, and everyone knows everyone, and people are freely engaged to each other in terms of dialogue and visit each other in their homes freely.”

Kenya’s collectivist culture meant Allan was used to a network of relatives hosting him and helping him find housing. In Scotland, he had to sort out those problems himself.

He spent his first three days in an Airbnb for three days, then another Kenyan student hosted Allan until he found a rental space he could share with other students. The private house turned out to be a little different than staying in a student apartment. “I lived in a seven-bedroom house, which was quite diverse,” he recalled. “We were only two PhD students, but the rest were retirees.”

Having many flatmates in many job situations (some retired, some working part-time) initially made it hard to find common ground. Allan found that food and conversation bridged the gaps. “We used to congregate in the evening when cooking, and we’d be chatting about different topics, whether it was what was happening in the UK or what was happening in the US, or what was happening back in Kenya. It was quite an enriching environment.”

Allan eventually moved to a smaller apartment in Leuchars, with its own eccentricities. The Royal Air Force had built a base in Leuchars in the 1960s which was being used by the British Army, but several blocks of housing were rented out to refugees and students. He continued to practice what he had learned about food and conversation by reaching out to other graduate students, which led to him meeting this writer in 2024.

Once he accepted the challenges of making friends in a more reserved culture, Allan realized he especially needed to overcome those challenges if he wanted to take full advantage of his time. Like many African students, Allan had been advised to build his academic life around a triangle: residence, classroom, and research space. “Sleep, wake up, go to class, do class, library, library, back the halls,” he summarized it. “Ideally, you’re gaining an academic life. But maybe you’re not getting an education. Because education is also when you immerse yourself in what is happening within the university.”

He eventually immersed himself through befriending people in his student cohort, attending church, and reaching out to people he met in those circles. One of his top recommendations for other students was, “Get into the good books of your supervisors and seek their help.”

Once Allan had adjusted to being a student in St. Andrews, his field work brought another set of challenges. He visited his first research site, in Ghana, in July 2024. He had not visited Ghana since the COVID pandemic. Shortly after landing in Accra and getting into a cab, he discovered that his Kenyan mobile banking app did not easily transfer money to a Ghanian bank. Fortunately, the driver agreed to accept payment once Allan had reached his destination. Allan had to build trust quickly throughout his trip, especially on days when he had to transfer Kenyan money to his UK account before transferring it to a Ghanian bank. Then there were the expected obstacles that came with interviewing strangers about fishing knowledge their families had passed down, ideas the fisher folk had not expected anyone to ask them about.  

“It was challenging, to be honest. I felt like quitting the whole PhD in my second year, when I was doing the field work. I was told it’s quite a normal thing for PhDs in second years to feel that way.”

Over three years of study, Allan learned many things he wished he had known at the start of his studies.

Like many students, he learned the value of applying for extra funds, whether it meant school funding, grants, or crowdfunding, to cover the inevitable extra expenses. “I thought the whole PhD centered around collecting this data. But eventually, you need to be writing all these grant applications, asking for help.”

Allan also learned that he had to ask for help even if it meant going past his comfort zone. “In East Africa, we tend to be quiet and humble, and we keep our problems to ourselves,” he observed. “I think I learnt the hard way that you have to speak for yourself. If you aren’t vocal enough, then your challenges may not be addressed.”

Knowing what he needed to ask to get those challenges addressed meant not just asking for help, but immersing himself in communities that showed him different ways of doing things. In St. Andrews, Allan found he could only learn so much about the school’s culture as a PhD student working alone in his office or hanging out with his small cohort. Volunteering and teaching tutorials gave him access to new circles. “Being involved in tutorials and getting experience in marking papers, which I did for two years, really taught me quite a lot,” he remembered. “Getting to know undergraduates and learning how an undergraduate course is structured was quite eye-opening for me as well.”

Learning to immerse himself in a community, to take risks and bond with people, also aided the field work. “It’s all about, I think, the genuineness,” he reflected. “How you can negotiate your relationship with people, how genuine you come across, and how you honor your promises, I think that enabled me to be able to succeed.”

In the end, Allan found that for all the technical expertise he needed to complete his studies, relationships proved just as important. “One of my supervisors tells me that what we do in human geography is that we are more or less operating as psychologists. You go and listen, establish relationships with people, and then you just listen.”

More information about Allan Mjomba Majalia’s work can be found on ResearchGate. More work by G. Connor Salter about his Scotland experience is available in