DOCTORAL STUDENTS, Working or Not, PLEASE BEGIN Your Degree with YOUR END IN MIND.

What do I mean by this? No matter what:

TYPE of institution (brick and mortar vs online university),

HOW YOU ATTEND (full-time grad student with little to no outside employment vs. full-time employee doing school on nights and weekends),

DEGREE (PhD, EdD, PsyD, etc.) or

DISCIPLINE (Humanities, Social or Natural Sciences, Nursing, etc…)

in which you do your PhD, please have an idea of what you would like to do with your degree afterwards and research the feasibility of this goal for the institution, degree, and discipline.

For example, is it typical for a teacher who does a PhD at an online university to become a college professor at a brick and mortar university? If this path is typical, there will be others who have done it previously and your institution should refer you to those people as resources or examples for your own personal research.

As a prospective student for any degree program you should research what the graduates of the program are doing after they complete their program.

Do you want to do research, work for the federal government, or progress in your current profession after completing your doctorate? Whatever your goal, complete a degree that will allow you to accomplish that goal. Do not get a doctorate just to get a doctorate. The process is too stressful to not be intentional.

The following advice column is excellent for full-time graduate students but also has important points for anyone working on a doctorate. Check it out! https://www.chronicle.com/article/Odds-Are-Your-Doctorate-Will/246613

For you working PhD students out here or those considering a PhD, in search of more advice, comment below with your questions! I’d love to hear from you!

Dr. Frances, Your Dissertation Coach

GET PhinisheD with Frances

Who doesn’t look forward to a freshly baked, homemade cookie over a store-bought cookie? Your mouth is watering already thinking about warm cookies, fresh out of the oven that melt in your mouth. Some of you may already be reaching for flour or cookie dough to put some cookies in the oven…You love homemade cookies so much that you don’t care if the cookie is not perfectly round from being made with a cookie cutter or is a little lumpy. You know that those lumps represents chocolate chips that make the cookie great and the irregular shape represents the love, care and uniqueness put into the cookie to make it homemade and just right for you.

But why is your dissertation coach talking about cookies? I’m not a dissertation coach who provides cookie cutter services. Instead, I provide personalized dissertation coaching to unique, special and driven working PhD students. I don’t provide cookie cutter coaching because it does not move working PhD students to dissertation completion.

I build relationships to understand the personalized needs of each working PhD student with whom I work to help them complete their dissertations with excellence and expediency. Because your dissertation research must be innovative, novel and position you as a scholar, your dissertation coaching experience also needs to be unique to your topic, methods, skills and committee. Even when there is a gap in your skills and the needs of your dissertation, my coaching and network provide tools and resources that push the best type of dissertation, A DONE ONE!

I started dissertation coaching because I saw so many working PhDs students stuck in the process and knew I could help. So like your fresh out of the oven homemade cookies, reach out and lets get your dissertation DONE!

May is the time of year when students and families experience commencement, a celebration of completing educational accomplishments and commencing new experiences towards one’s career of choice. Unfortunately, for many PhD students, the road to commencement is often longer and less well-defined compared to the path to commencement for other degrees.

While I was fortunate enough to have a supportive dissertation advisor, be on a campus with a strong graduate school completion community and complete my PhD in 4.5 years, this was after I SWITCHED PhD programs TO GET THAT IDEAL SITUATION. So the question is what happens when your dissertation situation is not “the ideal?” What if your dissertation advisor is not often available? What if your life is already full of personal and professional obligations when the opportunity to pursue your doctoral degree becomes possible? Most doctoral students know how to complete coursework because they have successfully competed other degrees but the research and writing components of the dissertation process are less familiar and can delay commencement. When these situations happen, a DISSERTATION COACH is critical to navigate a more direct path to completion, commencement and an excellent career. I had various coaches for different parts of my dissertation completion process and know they helped me hone strategies of resilience and persistence that I still use today. Now I positioning myself to help others build those same skills.

If you are or know a working doctoral student who is feeling stuck at any point in the process, quickly refer them to me. My dissertation coaching program, GET PHinisheD with FRANCES, will help them move from dissertation delay to DISSERTATION COMPLETION.

Email dr.carterjohnson@gmail.com to learn more.

Ready to get PhinisheD? Click here to schedule a Scholar Assessment Session with me.

In June 2013, my old experiences all had new twists and my new experiences were in old familiar places, reminding me that change is sometimes my only constant. This may sound scary to a lot of people but I have always been one to embrace and thrive versus avoid change.

I started the month attending the Capital City Jazz Festival with my husband, his gracious fraternity brothers, and my 2011-12 roommates. I got to hear old and new favorite artists Babyface and Gregory Porter! While we had a great time as always there were a few key friends missing because they are making important educational changes in their lives. We missed them but are proud of their change and decided to do things a little differently ourselves. Normally, hubby and I attend both days of the jazz festival, but this year we only attended Saturday because on Sunday and Monday, I had an opportunity to attend the Society of STEM Women of Color Conclave, where I interacted with scientific family from UMBC, Spelman, Mississippi State, Howard University, and Puerto Rico. It was great to be inspired and motivated about the intersection of discrimination and education, network and work on upcoming projects with sister doctors all in one place!

At the end of June, I presented an annual graduate funding talk with my colleague Patti at MSRP. They new twists were new changes in the talk, a new room and as always a new group of students excited and encouraged to pursue graduate degrees and funding! The very next week I attended and was the author on two papers at the ASEE Annual conference. While I have cited ASEE publications, this was a new experience in an old place; it was my first time attending this conference but it was in my undergrad hometown of Atlanta. It was motivating to reconnect with classmates and their families and some of my many real-blood cousins in Atlanta. One of my friends from undergrad recently published his dissertation as a book. We met for a breakfast book signing and loosely planned intersections of our work.

All in all, change is constant in old and new experiences but balance is absolutely necessary to be a change embracer or to live life effectively whether you love change or not. This is what I remember when the challenge of change tries to get difficult (because of course you all know it does) but that’s another post.