Wednesday, March 4, 2015

Building Resilience: Social Support


We will end this series on building resilience with the need for social support. Writing a dissertation tends to be a lonely endeavor, you are working in isolation with little interaction from peers. However, regular interaction will motivate you and make you feel connected. This in turn will help you be done faster. There are a number of ways to build a supportive group. 

1) Build a group locally. If you know local people who are working on their dissertation, suggest that you meet regularly. You might recruit others through asking everyone to bring one other person who is working on their dissertation. 

2) Build a virtual group. Invite others to email or text regularly and discuss problems and issues. 

3) Join my new text support group. I currently maintain two text support groups and am starting a new one- you can be a member. What's involved? You commit to writing in the group whenever you think, work, or talk about your dissertation. You also agree to offer support to others, as they will to you in celebrating your successes and helping you through tough times. There is a limit of 10 people in the group. Interested? Email me with a phone number where you can get texts- make sure it has unlimited texting – people tend to write quite a bit! 

Next time, I will post an overview of the dissertation process. Do you have an issue or a question that you would like me to discuss in a future post? Send me an email with your ideas. leann.stadtlander@waldenu.edu

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