I successfully defended my proposal a couple weeks ago. It was anti-climactic. I likened it to turning 18 in that it’s all this build-up to not much different. I’m still a “candidate,” I’m still writing, but it’s one more hurdle behind me.

For those who are interested, the defense involved me sitting at a small conference table with my committee and explaining my research in about 5-8 minutes. They asked some questions, made some suggestions, and that was it. All done. See you when you’re finished.

I’m putting my nose to the grind in order to get this thing done so stick around.

At some point in your program, it’s likely that you’ll have an existential crisis. When this happens, you’ll begin to question your sanity for even getting involved in this whole “PhD thing” in the first place.

For me, this was roughly the spring of 2009. At that point I felt like I was in a very long, very dark tunnel. I was right around the halfway point in my studies with two kids, a wife, and a full-time job. Who does this to themselves? I don’t need a PhD. I can do almost anything I want to do in my career without one! I mean, what do I want to do? Publish papers in journals no one will even read?

Had I been not so far along, I’m not sure I wouldn’t have quit. I felt like I was too far in to turn back but too far from the end to see the “light.” I reasoned that if I quit, I’d hate myself forever. So the only way out was through. I focused on my love of learning and the reason that I, personally, had decided to embark on this journey: The prospect of contributing to changing an aging system and being paid to learn and write. In truth, a job in higher ed is probably a long way off for me since I truly love what I do in my school, but I like knowing that when I’m ready I’ll have the option.

If and when you begin a PhD program, you can be almost certain that you’ll question yourself at some point (or points) along the way. Try to keep in mind that you’re in a marathon, not a sprint. It requires moderate, sustained effort over a long period of time. Heck, if it was easy everyone would have a PhD.

Here’s the thing: You can always find a reason not to get your doctorate. A corollary of this is that there is never a good time to begin. There will be kids, bills, mortgages, and a myriad of other things going on. But the time will pass, whether you’re in grad school or not.

When the doctoral doldrums hit, consider taking a semester off to rejuvenate. Change up your schedule. Take an online class or something outside of your college.

Most important: Stay focused on why you started on the journey. You had your reasons.

“Academic alignment” is a phrase that I’ve been using with increasing frequency to describe our efforts to maximize our use of instructional time at my school. Ira is someone whom I’ve admired for some time and whose work always engages and excites me and, while I’m not quite ready to rip the clocks off the wall, his recent post on undoing academic time hit my Twitter feed at exactly the right time.

This year we have allocated larger blocks of time to 4 longer blocks; each is about 90 minutes long. In the past, the school operated on a 6-period day with significantly shorter class periods. In order to accomplish this, we took a look at our data, “faced the brutal facts,”¹ and committed to focus — at least in the short-term — on math and literacy. Each of our students receives 90 minutes of math and literacy every single day. Science and social studies are taught for 90 minutes every other day or for a semester².

I believe that the closest thing we in education will find to a “silver bullet” are time and instruction. Purposeful adjustments to those two levers can pay dividends that exceed any canned academic program. I shared the graphic below with the staff and challenged them to dream up ways to see less of the orange circle. Now that we have adjusted to our new schedule, the remainder of this year and beyond will see our focus shift to maximizing every student’s academic learning time during that 90 minutes.

Our priority will be on a common academic language that communicates a culture of high expectations and academic excellence. We will also identify and adopt school-wide systems that are aligned from classroom to classroom. I made the comparison to Starbucks. You can go into any Starbucks and, while they all look a little different and have their own personality, there is never any doubt that you’re in a Starbucks. They don’t change the latté recipe. A Venti is still a Venti. The menu looks the same. The customer knows what to expect and doesn’t have to re-learn the menu every time they’re jonesing for a caramel macchiato.

At the end of my presentation, I asked the staff to reflect on a simple question: What do we want to give to our kids? I’m truly motivated and ready for the work that we have ahead. It’s good work and it’s important work.

1. I don’t care for that phrase. Sometimes the facts are not pleasant, but the word “brutal” is just so… well… Brutal… [↩]
2. During our pilot year, some teams teach science and social studies on an A/B rotation and some flip classes at the semester. [↩]

The first thing you really have to do is start taking some classes and get familiar with the faculty. I had the good fortune to have had a good relationship with one of the Associate Professors on the educational leadership faculty. This helped immensely when I was getting started. The best advice he gave me was to identify a focus area as early in your program as you can and make sure that you tailor as much of your research as possible around this area¹.

I’m [obviously] interested in technology leadership. One of the “rite of passage” classes I was required to take focused on educational policy. Dry and dull, right? How are they connected? Well, I ended up writing my final paper in the class on DOPA, COPA, CIPA, and COPPA and how the relationship between these pieces of legislation and E-Rate funding are commonly misunderstood or misapplied. The benefit of doing this is that when it came time to really identify a research focus, I had assembled a solid body of literature on which I could draw for my Lit Review².

Once you’ve been accepted, it is also a good time to seek out the person who will be your adviser. In some programs, you may not have a choice. In others, you may have to choose within a certain window of time. The best advice is to get to know as many faculty as you can in your first two or three semesters.

Bonus Tip: Of all the books I read and was forced to read over the program, the best one — and the one I wish I’d owned when I first started — is “Complete Your Dissertation or Thesis in Two Semesters or Less.” I think this is an unfortunate title because it’s not something a first year PhD student would naturally pick up, but there is some very practical advice in the book for students at all stages of the program and even for those who may be pondering whether a PhD is for them.

1. This doesn’t mean you’re making a life commitment, but if you have a broad area in which you’re interested it’ll help. A lot. [↩]
2. The Lit Review you will have to write for your dissertation will usually be Chapter 2 of the final product. As much of this as you can get out of the way ahead of time, the better. [↩]