Monday, May 21, 2012

Celebrating Newly Minted PhDs...and looking forward to your own success

On May 12th 2012, I had the distinct pleasure to hood three newly minted PhDs who were my "children", I served as chair of their dissertations. Four PhDs graduated on that day as the first ever PhDs to be 'produced' at my current place of full-time employment. The doctoral program here is only in its 5th year, so it was a very big deal to see these four succeed. Two of them from the first cohort took just under 5 years to complete, and the other two from the second cohort took just under 4 years to complete their doctoral journeys.

The following week, I was facilitating the dissertation seminar for cohort 3, and invited three of the new PhDs to come to the session and share their experiences. Unfortunately, I had to run out and missed their sharing, but I do have a good idea about what enabled them to join the ranks of timely completors. You have already heard/read from one of them in a previous post - Keith Keppley, PhD. The other two, Danny Kwon, PhD and David Wolf, PhD have not yet shared through this avenue, but like I said, I do know enough about their experiences to share what I believe contributed to their timely completion. Of these three, two (Keith and David) were my advisees, and Danny tells me he benefited a lot from reading this blog.

One of the 'completion enablers' is the ability to stay on task. For many doctoral students, engaging in doctoral study might be one amongst many other activities that you are engaged in - including parenting, elder-care, work, and social life. Ensuring you prioritize the dissertation will contribute towards timely completion; if you fail to prioritize it, then you might end up as one of those doctoral candidates who is rushing through the final few months to complete before the institutional deadline.

Secondly, life happens. However, you must be able to bounce back and get into dissertation mode no matter how often life interrupts your completion goals.

Thirdly, I have said this before - reward yourself along the journey. Small rewards for every milestone achieved such as completing the proposal and successfully defending it, completing data collection, completing analysis, etc. Rewarding yourself along the journey will keep you motivated and energized.

Drs David Wolf, Danny Kwon, Terrina Henderson-Brooks and Keith Keppley after their hooding ceremony at Eastern University, St Davids, PA USA. 
Fourth, let the people in your life be part of your support group. The four inaugural graduands shared stories about how their life partners and doctoral colleagues served as copy editors and sources of encouragement.

That is me with my back to the camera, hooding Terrina Henderson-Brooks, PhD.
I posted the images from the graduation as a way to inspire you to keep working at it. Whether you are at the beginning of your doctoral journey, in the midst of developing a proposal, mired in data analysis, or getting close to the end, let this be a reminder that 'this too will end' opening up doors of opportunity for you to use your newly acquired knowledge and credentials in the marketplace of ideas. Godspeed!

As always feel free to email me with questions and prompters for future blog posts. Or post your comments to enlarge this conversation. 

Dr Faith

1 comment:

  1. My cousin recommended this blog and she was totally right keep up the fantastic work!









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You are welcome to share your own experiences, point readers to other sources on the web, or ask questions that I will be glad to answer either in the comment thread or as new posts. Thank you!