Episode Details

Hello, it's Marvette! I'm back again. So this week's episode comes from a question I received on Instagram from the impressive educator who said how to keep committee on schedule so I can finish. And this is a pretty common question that I receive from folks who in some form or fashion, they are having trouble with communication from their chair or their whole committee. They can't get everyone in the same room at the same time. They are trying to get feedback, but it has been like weeks and they haven't heard anything. And this can make for a very frustrating parts of the process. So what I'm going to share is some things that you can do at the start of your dissertation journey. When you have all your like committee members in place or even just if you're starting us off with your chair. I also believe that this would work even if you're in the middle of your process and you find yourself like, you know, things were cool in the beginning, but now they're not in, you're having trouble.

I would just say also adapt some of these strategies. To help make life a little bit more bearable when it comes to committees and whatnot. Again, the short answer I would say is people have whole lives. Your chair and your committee, they have whole lives. They have other folks that they are advising or serving on other committees. They have their own research projects in writings that they have to do. They have classes that they're teaching other service things, life, family, friends, right? Like their whole thing isn't about you pause, full stop. And so it is really up to you to do everything in your power to make this a very seamless process as possible, right? Because at the end of the day, it is your dissertation. It is your degree, it is your journey. And so the dissertation process is very much guided by you.

You're controlling it. And up to this point you have been used to people telling you, being very prescriptive with you and telling you exactly what it is that you need to do and where you need to show up, how you need to do those things. And you learn really quickly that the dissertation process is the opposite. It because it depends on you. Like if you don't show up and write and do what you need to do, they can't do what they need to do for you. So that's a little mini rant there. I just wanted to make that note of like, that's my short answer of like, you need to be the one that is driving this process as much as possible. Not that you're telling your chair or anybody when you're gonna like that, you will be defending and they have to, you know, agree to that.

That's a whole other thing. What I am saying is, as much as you can control, the communication part, and I'm using the word control, and maybe that's the wrong word, but as much as you can be organized in, get clear on expectations for the process, the more that like, the easier or simpler it will be for everyone involved is really where I'm going with that. Okay. So I wrote my notes on an old envelope, let's hope that, I can remember what order I want to go in. Yeah, I'm going to be better. I'm going to get a system that's better. But you know, again, if you know me and listened to last week's podcast, I'm over here about the B minus, C plus work. So yeah. Okay. So you get to the point where you are ready to do like the dissertation process. You're like, I'm good.

Let's go. The first thing you need to do is create or think about a plan for the dissertation process. And I would even say take it one section at a time. So section meaning dissertation proposal is one section, collecting data and analyzing data as a second section, and finishing writing, chapter four and five edits and all of that is a third section, right? So depending on what stage you're in, just choosing that one part, we don't need to have the whole answer yet. Just choosing the one partner that you're in. So for the sake of this conversation, let's just say you're working o