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

Working the Dissertation Writing Plan

Just over a week ago, I had the opportunity to attend the Eastern Communication Association
in Cambridge, MA where I attended a session on graduate education. Eventually the conversation veered towards how to support doctoral students towards completion of their dissertations. Some of the ideas I have shared here were reiterated there; one highlight for me was the idea about creating structure after comprehensives/preliminaries/qualifying exams to enable students to make progress on the dissertation.

One professor shared how in their program, they have created due dates and deadlines by which students should submit various portions of their dissertation. Others felt this might be too structured for some students, particularly if those deadlines are created by the program. In some programs, the most important deadline is the defense date in order to graduate by a particular end-of-semester (e.g. must defend by end of March to graduate in May).

I think there is a way to create a structure that supports your efforts at writing your dissertation. It is to create a plan in cooperation with your dissertation advisor. That plan should include due dates for major sections of your dissertation. The easiest way to do that is to start with your intended graduation date, then work backwards to determine when you have to defend, when you have to submit the completed document for committee review, when you need to submit each chapter/major section, etc.

Once you come up with your plan, introduce it into your daily, weekly and monthly calender. That is, ensure that there are periods of your calender dedicated to achieving your dissertation goals. As many writing coaches will tell you, the best way to achieve your writing goals is to write daily. Waiting until you have huge chunks of time to write especially if you also have a busy work and family life is often not effective. Off course there may be seasons when you can dedicate entire days and even weeks to writing...but that is often the exception rather than the rule. 

As much as it depends on you, work that plan! When life happens (as it often does), then revise your plan accordingly. Be sure to keep your advisor abreast of your progress and any changes. Like you, your advisor quite possibly works on schedule, so any changes to your schedule affects hers. Be courteous by keeping her informed. If you cannot meet a particular deadline, inform your advisor in good time so she too can adjust her schedule.

When you achieve a milestone (such as complete a chapter, or data collection, or defense), reward yourself. Do not wait until the very end to reward yourself, do it along the way. This will keep you motivated and energized along the journey.

As always, all the best. Comments and questions welcome.