Investigating, analyzing, evaluating, creating, contextualizing, self-directing: skills like these are integral to the writing of a thesis or dissertation but also characteristic of the broad occupational domain called knowledge work. To thesis and dissertation writers at any stage of their projects, below we offer thoughts on how you’re already developing—and can continue to develop—skills that are crucial for success in knowledge-oriented fields.
Tallies and Time Clocks?
Knowledge work is generally hard to quantify or measure. Ironically, though, those who engage in such work across fields of academia tend to be fairly obsessed with counting and measuring. Most carefully keep or monitor totals of papers presented, articles published, grants awarded, committees served on, and classes taught per year. When you arrange your CV and the several accompanying documents needed for an academic job search, your field’s particular obsessions with such performance-related numbers boldly reassert themselves. Other academic endeavors are sometimes summed up in terms of hours spent per week in classrooms, offices, labs, meetings, field investigations, grading sessions, or writing stints.
Yet the efforts that go into various kinds of academic production are not always easy to break down into regular time chunks. Realistically, much academic work can keep the worker occupied from early morning to late at night, during parts of weekends, and during stretches of semester breaks. (Let me briefly add that plenty in and outside academia do seem interested in figuring out the number of hours per week academics actually work—or in debating how many hours per week they should work. A couple of recent reports (see here and here) suggest that such investigations and debates are complex and sometimes testy. We avoid these issues in this post.)
Your Project: Training in Key Knowledge-Work Skills
A lot of what you do while completing your thesis or dissertation is obviously solid preparation for a future career in knowledge-centered domains. As outlined and nicely detailed by the Careers & Employment Division at the University of Manchester, those aiming for a career in academia need to develop at least five skills for success. Good news: as soon as you embark on your project, you’re immersed in an experience that can help you hone each of them.
Networking: As you develop relationships with members of your committee, each member can introduce you to others to help build your professional network. In addition, while researching and writing, you can further extend your network by attending and/or presenting parts of your project at conferences. Last year around this time, I traveled to a national conference to present a paper based on research for one of my dissertation chapters and attended multiple panels in areas central and peripheral to my academic interests. The experience led to new contacts and eventually a request to submit a piece to a scholarly society’s publication. Next month, I’ll travel to a regional conference to deliver a presentation with an NIU colleague and attend several discussion sessions. You’re likely taking advantage of similar networking opportunities. If not, seek them out.
Time Management: You’re already a knowledge worker and thus already weighing priorities and setting many deadlines of your own. In previous posts on this blog, we’ve covered approaches to managing time during writing sessions, balancing your project with family matters, and maintaining your focus and enthusiasm by mixing work with recreational activities. Consider such scheduling practices as sound preparation for the self-directed knowledge work of your post-degree career.
Resilience: While writing a thesis or dissertation, setbacks inevitably occur. Data may need to be reanalyzed. Ideas and approaches may need revamping. Feedback on your progress from committee members—or from attendees at academic conferences—can be encouraging but also humbling. As you get closer to the project’s completion, you’ll likely start looking for your postgraduate job. Academic job hunting is especially fraught with pressures, rejections, and disappointments. But lows like these that you experience throughout your project build your patience and resilience for similar wrinkles you’ll face down the road.
Presentation Skills: As a knowledge worker, you need to be able to present ideas clearly, in a variety of settings, among colleagues but also among people unfamiliar with intricacies of your work. Each time you revise a section of your long document, you add useful material to your expanding pool of well-articulated expressions of your findings. And you shouldn’t just aim to present them at your defense—another reason to plan to present at conferences while completing your project. If you’re teaching, consider ways to integrate insights from your developing work in the classroom.
Project Management: At the NIU Thesis Office, we stress the value of being proactive in managing your thesis or dissertation project. In a previous post, we featured a review of a useful book that describes the project-management approach to the dissertation. Ultimately, you’re the manager of your project—under supervision of your director, of course. The management experiences you gain now will certainly inform many aspects of your future knowledge-oriented employment.
Final Thoughts
Happy investigating, analyzing, evaluating, self-directing, and writing to all. And good luck to those of you defending over the next few weeks!
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