Unexpected expenses

Our guest blogger today is Dr. Carol (Charlie) Barton. She is a PhD graduate of the College of Management and Technology. She is also a co-leader in a weekly doctoral student cohort.

Getting a doctoral degree is expensive. We remember to budget for the usual expenses: things like tuition, required residencies, and textbooks. This budgeting model works out pretty well as long as we are in the course based phase of our doctoral programs. As we begin working on our Premise, our Prospectus, and eventually our Final Study, we often discover unexpected expenses.

If you are having problems moving forward in your program, your Chair or Academic Advisor could recommend that you take one or more academic skills courses or attend a Dissertation Intensive. Other expenses include primary source books or other materials. Think about your research design before you commit to it. Does your design require specialized experts, a specific population, or software that is not available through Walden? If your research design does have these requirements, how can you design your research study and analytic methods to reduce future expenses?

Unexpected expenses often occur when collecting and analyzing data. Will you have to pay a fee to use a research instrument? It is better to price out this need while you are in the Premise stage, rather than get to the data collection phase and find out you cannot afford to use the instrument that you designed your study around. Your study methodology could require you to gather information using a service such as Survey Monkey. Survey Monkey has many pricing options, understanding these options when designing your study will help you keep costs down. Maybe you need to travel to meet your participants. Will you travel by car, bus, train, or airplane? Will you need to take time off from your regular employment?

Software and hardware represent other areas of unexpected expenses. You may want to purchase transcription or analytic software if you decide not to use a consultant. Are there trial versions of the software that you want to use? Always invest your time in a test drive, before you plunk down your dollars. Will you need to buy a digital recorder? Thumb drives for backing up your files? A lockable cabinet or safe? As you can see, the expenses can mount up quickly.

Don’t despair! Before you go out and buy something or engage expert services, sit down with your Chair. Walden has a lot of free resources. For example, go to the library and asked the librarian if you can borrow those primary source books. Don’t forget to talk to the Center for Research Quality during Open Office hours and ask their advice. Take advantage of every Writing Center resource, the Walden University blogs, and other social media resources.

Yes, getting a degree is expensive. With a little planning, you can make your dollars stretch further.

Next time we will examine Chapter 2: Intro. 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