Life vs. the Doctoral Student

I just took a short break from my readings this week (understandable if you knew what I was reading - very dry org theory) to touch base with my silent students.  At this point I have 14 students who should be registered for dissertation hours.  Of those, I'm in regular contact with about half.  So where are the others?  After all, they've paid their tuition and they should be getting their money's worth, right?  In spite of the financial investment, I'm afraid many of them are consumed by their lives and pushing off their dissertation work for another day, another week, another month, and then ultimately, another semester.

Now for the sake of the fact that they can access this blog and may become upset with my assessment, I will offer a critical admission: Life gets in the way when writing a dissertation.  To offer empirical evidence, I pulled up my own unofficial transcript from GSU the other day and saw semester after semester of dissertation hours that I paid for.  During the time I was writing my dissertation I experienced a few life changes: a hellish first year as a school administrator complete with school board secret meetings against the principal, walk-outs, pickets, news crews, and ultimately "running" the school with my fellow assistant principal for several months; shifting to a second administrative position in another district; a divorce; and moving three times.  Truth be told, I also let a lot of other things get in the way as well.  I taught courses at night; I did some research for NCTAF that consumed me for an entire summer; and following the divorce, I spent way too much time engaging in retail therapy and reviving a social life.  Ultimately I had to decide that THOSE THINGS - whatever they may be and however horrible some of them were - were NOT going to steal my degree from me.  I put a new screen saver on my computer that scrolled "Get the damn thing done," and I did.  

I had a huge advantage: I knew I wanted to be a university professor and I knew that the only way that was going to happen was if I finished my degree.  By August of 1999 I was applying for university positions for the following year.  By October/November of that year I knew I had a job waiting for me at ISU, with one caveat: I HAD to be finished with my degree.  It was hard enough finishing under those circumstances.  For individuals who do not have such a major and absolute deadline looming, I imagine the struggle is even greater.  That's why graduation rates are so abysmal when it comes to Ph.D.s.  People are shocked when they hear the percentages of students who stay A.B.D., but when the alternative is to set your own deadlines and meet them, it is understandable.

Horrible things happen in life - things that can send us reeling and cause us to feel that just getting up in the morning and staying vertical most of the day is a huge feat.  Life-altering events such as divorce, etc. are also more likely to happen at this point in a person's program.  As in my own situation, you can no longer hide in classes from whatever problems that may have existed at home.  When you go back home in the evenings those tensions and problems become even more pronounced.  In many traditional families, the wife and/or mother who "was" somehow changed during the course of eighty or ninety hours of graduate work, and this strong, thinking person has to leave a situation (or is left in one).  Sometimes graduate students finally have those medical check-ups they put off while in classes only to find out they have some sort of medical issues to deal with.  At other times "life" just happens, and it has nothing to do with everything a student has done to try to earn a degree prior.  

It takes an incredibly strong person to move ahead with a dissertation - to find ways to clear his or her mind of all life's clutter in order to develop a line of inquiry, pursue it, and then render meaningful and defensible judgments regarding it.  For individuals suffering, the task is monumental.  For those who have given up so much time, energy, and money for years of coursework because they really want something, the challenge "How badly do you want this thing?" can haunt and disable when faced with a dissertation.  

As for my silent seven, I will continue to poke and prod.  I will keep them in my thoughts and prayers knowing that many of them are struggling with things that have nothing to do with leadership theory, John Dewey, or whether they should pursue case study research or a straight qualitative study with phenomenological elements.  In the battle of life vs. doctoral student, I will be forever faithful in cheering on and lifting up hopes for the latter.