Waiting is an essential part of the dissertation experience
(and it is often worse at land-based institutions). You wait for faculty to
review your paper, and wait for the URR and IRB; every person has two weeks to
review it. Why does it take so long? What should you do while you are waiting
so the time is not wasted?
Why does it take so long? Typically, the time is not spent
in just reviewing your paper- that actually just takes a few hours. The problem
is that faculty may have many more students and other obligations, they may be
traveling and attending residencies, or be on vacation. So the waiting time is
taken up with getting to your paper.
What can you do to use the waiting time productively? You
can go on to the next step- such as the next chapter, working on the PowerPoint
for your defense, or the IRB application. You can do an updated search in the
library- seeing if there is more recent literature that you can use; check the
dissertation database and other databases outside psychology. You can work on
organizing your workspace, filing system, or learning new software such as
EndNote. You can read some reference books on your method, statistics, or
theory.
The important part is to keep working on something
related to your dissertation! Do not just sit there doing nothing – use the
waiting time productively. This is your paper, take ownership, take control,
and get done!
Next time I will give you some guidelines for how to
complain. Do you have an issue or a
question that you would like me to discuss in a future post? Would you like to
be a guest writer? Send me your ideas! leann.stadtlander@waldenu.edu
I certainly had a LOT of waiting time! Of course, I used some of that time to conduct additional research, but given my topic, there is not a lot of research out there. I read my document many times, and it's amazing that given the sheer girth of this monstrous project, every single time myself or anyone else read through it, there was an error found--I mean every time!
ReplyDeleteWhat I did that was most productive with my time was I wrote a book--a work of fiction, and ended up getting it published! In fact, I remember going to my 3rd residency and got the news that it was printed. I also used that time to apply for conferences. I ended up speaking at 2 conferences, and was a keynote speaker at a university in San Francisco, partially related to my dissertation topic. I also wrote copious notes on another book I am currently working. Honestly, with the time I had waiting, I could have written at least 2 more books, but got a little lazy. Good luck and use your time wisely! Remember that at some point when you get to that Erikson stage of generativity vs. stagnation, you'll look back and think, "I sure am glad I took advantage of that free time to put my foot in the door of the world. You are setting the tone for yourself in terms of what you will do once you get your PhD. Will you just do therapy, or will you make significant contributions to a growing body of knowledge and the ultimate search for truth?