The Chronicles Of Nay

Hello! Happy Friday! We have officially made it to the time of semester, as a student, that you think it is all down hill from here and you realize that you are actually still very much going up hill. There are due dates for all the classes, due dates for projects that you were so excited about a couple months ago are coming up and you are tired! It will all be done in a week, then I have a couple weeks to take a breath before I start a new journey. Ok, let me slow down.

Like I said before I am going to try to clarify some things. I will start from the beginning. Let me start by saying that all PhD programs are different. So this is specifically how my program works. There are some universal truths.

Ok so my program has course work that needs to be done. There are specific classes that need to be done. For instance I needed to take specific science education classes (that is what my program is! haha). Then I had to take classes about how to research, different types of research, I took classes about students, I took classes about technology, I took classes I enjoyed, I took classes that challenged me, and I took classes that I did not enjoy as much.

Getting the classes done was the easy part. Those are all laid out for you. Like a list “pick a few from here, a few from here” then you makes sure that the number of hours adds up to the correct number. I believe for my program that is like 51ish maybe, then there are more for the writing part but hold on I am not there yet!

Once I got past that point is when life get’s complicated. So this is the point that I have to put my committee together. So my committee is four people that are going to help me along this journey. This might be where different programs have different requirements. I am allowed to pick the people that I think will be most helpful. I had a few stipulations for myself 1) Will they help me? 2) They know me and my research 3) I like them! jk jk but really, I respect them and I expect that they will balance pushing me and helping me when I inevitably break down! Molly often talks about the four people we generally should pick should be

1. The committee chair – in my case a science ed person. This person is usually your advisor (she is mine, but so much more!). My chair is someone that I have worked with for many years, she knows my abilities academically and beyond. I respect her and her judgement and I know that she will never let me give less than my absolute best. She has a skill of letting you sort of jump in with all of your ideas and enthusiasm then when you are like “whoa what am I doing?” She can reel you in, refocus you and send you out in to the world!
2. A methodologist – someone that can help me when it comes to my method. I will be doing qualitative research. So this person is an expert in that. I have had a couple classes with her and I am excited to apply some of the content from classes towards my writing as we go forward.
3. The content person- this is someone that has knowledge in the content of our research. My research has to do with emergent multilingual students so this person is a bilingual education professor.
4. The cheerleader- Finally this person can be so many different people. Usually this person has information to share, they are an expert in something related to what you are doing but maybe they are there because of some other connection. My fourth person is someone that has a perspective of what I am talking about. He is also knowledgeable in the Bilingual situation and the qualitative research.

I am looking forward to working with all of them! It is helpful that I got to pick them!

So now that I have my committee selected I have to complete my comprehensive exams. This is how my program does it, again I say programs might differ. Each of the people on my committee submit a question to my chair. Then in a 2 week span of time, of my choosing, the questions are released. These questions are designed to show what you have learned during the semesters you were in school.

This “exam” is a little scary because you can’t move on to the next part of the process until you pass. You only get two shots at it. I hear that there are a lot of steps in place to help us be successful however it is still a little unnerving knowing that! So, I start my comps (that is usually what I will call it when I talk to you! haha) at the end of May. So if I don’t answer you I am working on that. On the flip side if I call you crying please answer! haha

That is basically as much of the process that I have lived so far. After the comps I will keep you updated on the next parts! I hope that everyone has a great weekend!