Coalition for Women's Identities
Thursday, 19 February 2015 - 11:42am
The Power of Perseverance, Determination, and Basic People Skills
The work involved in completing a doctorate is both difficult and time consuming. There is a reason many universities offer fellowships and assistantships to graduate students and some programs require a student to attend full time.
Not only is there class time, homework, papers, and exams, but there is also learning which statistical software is best for you, or which citation management software is best and easiest for you to use, learning all the red tape that must be navigated to get through the process, and the sometimes contentious behavior of committee members both toward the student as well as toward each other.
I can only tell my story along this journey and hope that it offers some comfort, some encouragement, and some the reminder to just keep swimming.
This past fall, I began my third year as a doc student. I took nine credits, which is three classes at my institution and meant nine hours a week spent inside the classroom expanding my knowledge. In addition, homework has been completed somewhere in the time remaining in the week. As you will see, free time is nearly non-existent.
I work full time. During the fall semester, I was an assistant director of residential life. In my job I helped manage student crisis, served on-call for nearly 12,000 students who live on campus, and supervised a team that was 50% new to the university. Oh, of course, served on committees and performed other duties as assigned. Late assignments are not accepted if something work related invades all hours of the day, including those hours you had set aside for homework or writing. Some professors are not accommodating when the on-call phone rings and takes you out of the classroom for minute or so, depending on the needs related to the call.
As much as I do not want my parental status to somehow make it more or less incredible that I do what I do, I need to share, for the sake of others, that I am also a mom. My little man is three and half years old and full of energy. I like to joke that he only has settings, on or off. There is no sitting quietly while mom works on homework. There is no rest time when mom has been up with on-call situations during the night and he is awake at 6:00am. Oh, and the two hour afternoon nap on the weekends had become a thing of the past before the fall semester even began.
I further stretched the little time I had available and performed a job search as well as wrote and defended my preliminary examination. Not only had my time become an incredibly valuable commodity, the additional behavioral complications between a few committee members had to be worked out for continued success.
I do not believe I am alone when it comes to having to navigate touchy spaces with committee members. Without over sharing, a few strategies I implemented that have seemed to work are listed below:
1. Make sure your committee members know your goal. When they know your goal, they understand how to best go about helping you be successful rather than thinking your goal is something opposite of what it might actually be.
Are you planning to get a book and a few articles out of your dissertation? Are you hoping to transition into a faculty role at a research institution or a teaching institution post graduation? Or, are you just interested in completing the degree for personal fulfillment and professional opportunity?
2. Make sure you know how your committee members can assist you on your journey and how important it is to them that you tap into them as resource. Knowing where they are coming from will help you frame your interactions with them and reduce frustration.
Are they on your committee just because it’s part of their job? Do they add an area of expertise to you work? Are they hoping to be able to guide you through the process and make an impact on your work? Are they invested in your success as a student and beyond?
3. Relationships matter. Connect with your committee, if you can, outside of the formal processes of earning a doctorate.
4. You are the student and will often have to drive your own bus. It’s ok to bring your committee along on the journey with you rather than wait for them to pave the road for you. You have the ability to set your deadlines, your pace, and your goals. If you want to finish your degree in three and half years while working full time and being a great mom, great! But your committee might look at you funny and doubt your ability to do accomplish this goal so you might have to do more of the driving of your process.
I am often questioned about the load I choose to carry as a fulltime student, fulltime employee, mother, and sane person who still has time for a hobby and sleep. Here’s the thing, if you want it bad enough, you will find a way to make it work for you! My approach my not be best for you and that’s ok. However, I hope that you can see from my approach that it is possible, if you really want it to be!
The keys to success are simple, set your priorities, take care of yourself with quality sleep, food and regular physical activity, stay focused, and tune out those who doubt you, and learn to manage your committee members as well as your work and various life roles. I plan to stay the course as I navigate the completion and defense of my proposal in February, transition to a new professional role in different region of the United States in March, and hopefully graduate in December. It won’t be easy, but then again, I wouldn’t have it any other way!
There are many other great stories and strategies out there from other past and present doc students. Please share your strategies for success. Together, we can do it!
Anne Stark
Assistant Director of Residential Life
Purdue University
@StarkAnneR