Co-Working for Knowledge Workers

by Robyn Byrd

I'm firmly lodged in my third "stall" phase of writing the dissertation. First I stalled on the proposal; then I passed the defense after 6 months of rescheduling. Next I stalled on Chapter 2; but I pushed through that (plus an introduction) this summer by going on a distant, week-long retreat. With four chapters and all revisions remaining after a full year of being ABD...I need a plan. One that doesn't involved driving 900 miles away from everything.

How can I recreate that distraction free, work-friendly environment I found so far away? I didn't hide in the woods to work like Thoreau or Nietzsche, even though I was bunking at a house in the idyllic Catskills. Every day I drove to the nearest tiny town to work at a bookstore with a coffee shop, where many locals sat at large tables with reading lamps, and worked on writing, telecommuting, or whatever they needed to do. It was THE THING to get me working. I am hoping I can recreate this atmosphere through local co-working.

There are a few options for co-working, depending on where you live and how much cash you can spare.

Co-Work Office Spaces:

It sounds funny to pay to work, but you can and should do just that if you can afford it. Co-working office spaces provide everything you need: wi-fi, coffee, water, desk space, printers, pens, and so on. All you need to bring is a laptop! Some of these spaces are more collegiate than others. People arrive at set times and keep each other accountable, and even have the water cooler banter you'd expect in the corporate world. Other spaces are more quiet and people keep to themselves.

25N Coworking in Geneva, IL
photo courtesy 25N Coworking

Personally I would like to find a collegiate space where I can report on my days off as if it's a second job. Because technically, it is my second job, and I'm slacking pretty hard at it.

Visit co-work spaces near you to check out the culture and environment before signing up. (I'm doing that this month.) This can start as low as about $100 per month, which is a pittance if it means your dissertation is getting written. (Note the passive voice there after my months of stalling... what I mean to say is you are writing your dissertation.) Many co-working spaces also offer higher cost plans that include perqs like assigned desks and lockers for your books.

The only caveat I anticipate about these spaces is that I might not fit in. Dissertation writing is a weird thing!

Public Library Work Spaces:

"Public" is the key word here. The public library is an excellent place to work that offers many of the conveniences and tools of the university library -- but it gets you away from the university! Working in THAT building, the school's library, can be just as distracting and psychologically disadvantageous as working from home. Changing it up by using a space that is still conducive to knowledge work, yet is less familiar and full of people doing different sorts of things, can help you work.

Treat it like an appointment! Some libraries have dedicated study rooms that you can reserve for a couple of hours at no cost. Make a date of reserving one on your thesis work days. You'll have access to everything you need, and you can even search for a library with a coffee shop attached or nearby. The only cost associated with this is the commute, and you'll have to bring everything with you every time.

I have used public libraries this way ever since I started grad school, because the university library had lost its draw for me by then. They are very comfortable and welcoming.

A public library's shared work space, Naperville, IL

Monthly Meet-Ups:

Meeting once a month may not sound like much, but scheduling and hosting a meet-up of busy people probably can't happen more often than that. Though, if you think about it -- meeting once a month for a few dedicated hours means tens of hours of writing over a year! You could use these to get through a chapter's worth of work, if not more.

Several of my colleagues host informal meet-ups in their homes or in seminar rooms on campus. They keep each other accountable and share an enormous task that they all understand (the latter, you can't get from a co-work space).

If you are a student or a local to NIU, this office hosts a monthly meet-up in the Founders Memorial Library called Write Place, Write Time, on the second Thursday of every month from 6-9pm. This group is ONLY for thesis and dissertation writers (or those writing proposals for such), so again, you are in good company if you attend. Having others working alongside you on the same kinds of tasks keeps you focused and activates that inner spectator who will tell you to "get back to work!"

The Magical Coffee Shop:

The indispensable coffee bar at Inquiring Minds Bookstore
(The bookstore that saved me! In Saugerties, NY)

It's a long-shot, but if you can find a coffee shop that tolerates working loiterers, isn't too loud, and has enough work space for you, you've found magic! Coffee shops were the first modern co-work spaces in the early 2000s when the dot-com bubble created thousands of telecommuters and office-less entrepreneurs. While that bubble has burst, many coffee shop owners still expect to see a good amount of labor happening at their tables. By my calculations though, I think it might be the same cost (and a surer thing) to rent a space at a co-working office. Those lattes are expensive, and loud people can ruin all your plans.

Good Luck!

If you are a person who has an awesome home-office situation that works for you, that is great. Or if you can work anywhere without feeling distracted, that's cool too! But for many of us, we need to remove ourselves from the dirty floors, dirty dishes, and hungry kids, or from the over-familiarity of the university office and library, in order to focus. I wish I could have brought that perfect bookstore home from the Catskills with me, but I couldn't. So I need to recreate a work space that uses the power of other people's work and the effects of a consistent but impersonal environment. I don't know how else to get things done. I hope you can find what works for your work too!

Graduate Students: University Assets, Underpaid Labor

by Robyn Byrd

On a recent Wikipedia journey, I ended up on the page defining graduate assistants. They got some of it right. But the page doesn't mention that many grad students are not exactly "assistants." We teach classes as the instructor of record, developing our own syllabus and lesson plans. We run labs by ourselves. We hold office jobs that keep the doors open. We are mandatory reporters, freshman advisors, and perform hundreds of other roles that carry the burden of a "real" job. Sure some of us spend a semester here and there "assisting," but many of us have regular duties that would fall under a full-time job description. 

The fact that people outside of academia continue to think of us as "little helpers" rather than workers and laborers, allows our low pay and lack of representation to persist.  

The real clincher on the Wiki definition? People also don't understand how little we're paid: "The stipend allows for the graduate student to focus on their studies instead of a full-time job, but pays a significant portion of the income of a full-time job." I laughed out loud at this. Perhaps if you go to Yale and are a member of Local 33. But such a tier of income is not accessible for most American graduate assistants, forcing us to work outside the university to make ends meet, compromising the studies the assistantship is supposed to fully support. At NIU, almost everyone I know who has a master's degree works as an adjunct (which is a whole other can of worms and exploited labor). This makes life extremely stressful, and puts studying extremely on the back burner.

What can we do to alleviate the suffering of grad students? It may be somewhat voluntary suffering, but for no other laborious job do we fault the workers for asking for more money, especially when they work for an enormous entity. What's different about our work? What's different about a university system with millions versus a corporation with millions?  Non-academics and administrators seem to perpetuate the myth that we don't do much but "assist" and that our lifestyle is easy. A chosen path of intellectual pursuit and austerity. But it doesn't have to be this way. We are academics. But we are also laborers.

There are ways to solve this imbalance!

A graduate nursing student conducts a patient exam

• Increase awareness and transparency about grad student labor, and improve the language we use to talk about it: First and foremost, any of the below suggestions will require a change in how administrators and tenured faculty talk about GAs, their work, and their pay, both to the public and to new recruits. For instance, perhaps "assitsantship" is an outdated word that does not accurately reflect the professional and valuable work that grad students contribute. Even "stipend" could use an update since we pay taxes on that as income!

UW's GA union marches

• Unionization: While some GAs at U.S. universities have managed to organize unions, faculty, admins, and former students I've talked to say it is quite difficult and discouraging. Yet grad students do not have the representation that many other university employees do, so how do we ask for what we need? How do we protest pay decreases, terrible work schedules, or a refusal to give us medical leave? We have to do this as individuals, each governed by a different handbook per the year we began our current program. It's quite a mess, and even if one of us can follow through with some kind of complaint or demand, we are all alone. No other university employee has to deal with this lack of security for such a long-term position. (But they make it not so long by giving out 9-month contracts, and not so important by not even lumping us in with employees.) Unionization would definitely benefit all GAs. Nearby universities with GA unions include UW Madison (which claims the first ever!) and UI-UC.

• University Reorganization: I fear the only way grad student unionization could become an accepted norm would be for universities to reorganize and reprioritize. If knowledge is the product of the university, then the teachers, including the rookies, must be treated well. The plights of the adjunct and the grad student (while university administration swells and football fields get built and re-built) show just how backward university priorities have become. I don't know what it would take for this to happen. Do you?

• Fewer GAs: Finally, one way to reduce the pressure on the university to provide a living wage to grad students, is to reduce the number of grad students. Since assistantships are usually awarded to only the most talented grad students, many others are paying full tuition and not receiving a stipend. If GAs were based more on enrollment than on growing a program, that would ensure that there is plenty of work to go round, and plenty of budget to cover it. While those doing the hiring would tell you they consider enrollment, I have seen cohorts come in with nothing to do, or having to snag jobs from more experienced GAs. Don't hire so many!

When it comes down to it, I don't have one good answer to our problems. But I know we are workers, not just assistants, and I know that we don't have to suffer the way we do just because people don't understand what it is we even do, or how little we actually get paid.

These views are my own and do not necessarily reflect the views of the Thesis and Dissertation Office.

Announcing: Dissertation Boot Camps

A post-traditional NIU student
*trying* to work from home

This summer, for the eighth year, the University Writing Center at NIU is offering its Dissertation Boot Camps!

These camps are retreat-style workshops, presentations, and writing sessions for those who are in progress (past prospectus defense) on a dissertation in any field. What is retreat-style? That means you the Writing Center facilitates full-day schedules (from two days to a whole week), giving you dedicated writing time with interruptions from home life and other work. We all know it can be impossible to write at home with kids, pets, and responsibilities distracting us. Or even if you write at work... there is always other work! Dissertation Boot Camp is a chance to get away from everything that's been keeping you from writing, and work on your dissertation surrounded by peers with the same lofty goal: a done dissertation.

Quiet writing time in the lab
or around campus

In addition to long blocks of dedicated writing time (approx. 5 hours per day), Gail Jacky, director of the UWC and veteran writing tutor, will lead sessions on tackling writer's block, how to relax, and other common problems. Writing coaches will be available to give formal consultations and feedback, and talks with your peers can be just as fruitful.

Intellectual isolation from our family and friends can be almost as frustrating as not being able to find time to work around family and friends... so being in a cohort of dissertation-writing peers can also potentially alleviate the stresses of compartmentalizing everyday life and feeling alone in our struggles. Even if just for a few short days.

Schedules for the programs depend on the length of the workshop: the cost of the 2-day camp is $100, and the cost of the week-long camp is $250. Some writers decide to go ALL IN and stay overnights at NIU! The Holmes Student Center offers affordable lodging on campus, if your really need to get away and focus your time on your work.

Workshops run throughout the summer. You can make this fit around your summer vacation or work responsibilities:

Writers can chat, cheerlead, or just comisserate!

2-day Bootcamps

June 13-14
July 17-18
August 1-2

Week-long Bootcamps

June 25-29
July 23-27


Learn more at the UWC website, and email Gail Jacky with any questions!

How the Differently Minded Can Take Life by the Horns -- Temple Grandin's Take

This is Part One of a two-part series on Temple Grandin and the importance of "different" minds.

Last week I attended a talk by Temple Grandin here at NIU. I jotted down a variety of take-aways from her presentation, but one of the ideas that stuck with me (a doctoral student suffering from depression) is how those of us with different minds, those whose minds refuse to conform to neurotypicality, can often provide new insights into research and other kinds of intellectual work. Grandin also argued that as difficult as work might be when you have to struggle against the limits of your own mind, in some ways her high-functioning autism is a blessing. Knowing one's mind and having to work around it enables the differently minded to succeed in unexpected and unconventional ways.

Who is Temple Grandin?

If you didn't get the title reference to horned animals...Temple Grandin knows a thing or two about horned animals. Grandin is an animal scientist, author, and entrepreneur who, despite her autism (and perhaps because of her autism), earned a PhD from University of Illinois Urbana-Champaign in 1989. Since then, Grandin's work with farm animals and how they think has led to her invention of the curved corral and other innovative solutions for working with animals. While all of that is extremely impressive and interesting, what interests us most is how her "different mind" enabled her to develop unique and unexpected ideas about animals, and to do doctoral work.

What is a different mind?
Grandin herself has a diagnosis of autism and cerebral damage, but her philosophy on the strengths of the differently minded applies to anyone who suffers from neuro-atypicality -- whether a person is dyslexic, has lost their short-term memory, has dyscalculia, or thinks in pictures rather than words. A  number of mental conditions could apply to people who are otherwise functional and intelligent. What Grandin and others find advantageous about what are otherwise considered disabilities is that a differently minded person's altered perception and processing enables them to see things from a completely new perspective, and to sometimes discover solutions that a neurotypical person would never have access to.

For instance, Grandin's patented cattle corral design was developed when she decided to walk with the cows on the way into the slaughterhouse, and to try to see what they see. Rather than looking at their progress toward the plant analytically, from the outside, she did so sympathetically, walking in the shoes (or the hooves, in this case) of the cattle. In her presentation she shows several photos of cattle avoiding entrances. It is not always immediately apparent why they seemed to stop dead in their tracks with only thin air in front of them. But Grandin points out shadows, streams of light, reflections, and even a stray chain swaying, hanging from a ceiling, as sources of confusion and fear for the animals.

Grandin also names many other well known "different minds" who put mild disabilities to work for them. Bill Gates, Steve Jobs, Elon Musk -- she offers them all up as examples of people whose minds did not fit the mold, yet enabled them to innovate. The Steve Jobs reference reminds me of Apple's ungrammatical tagline from twenty years ago -- "Think Different."

Why Grandin Doesn't Have to Be an Anomaly
Folks like Bill Gates aren't born every day, it's true. But it's also true that people with mild disabilities, disabilities which may eventually make them believe they are incapable of advanced study, are born every day.  A significant portion of Grandin's talk is devoted to teaching people how to live and work better with the minds they have. Some key takeaways that could help us all through an advanced degree:

• Develop workarounds: Grandin believes there are types of minds -- mathematical ones, visual ones, and verbal ones, to be specific. And each of them can be differently affected by autism, dyslexia, etc. So if, for instance, you have been shown by your mind time and again that you are not particularly verbal, then develop a method where you don't have to rely on words. Draw your notes, use visual reminders, make big checklists, etc. Research your disability to learn other workarounds that will support you through the intellectual work you have to do.

• Don't overspecialize: Though Grandin has a Ph. D. in animal science, she is adamant that graduate students should not overspecialize. Here she offers particular caution to her autistic peers who tend to be hyper-focused. Grad students need to specialize in a degree area to complete a thesis or dissertation, but they should surround themselves with different minds when they do collaborative work. Most of the research work Grandin has produced has been in interdisciplinary teams, and some of her articles are co-authored. Working with people across various fields keeps her versatile and keeps her interested in her work. It also keeps her more social! (She gets in a few jokes here, about Ph. D. students who can't talk to people at parties...)

• Have art or hobbies in your life: Piggy-backing (haha) on "don't overspecialize," Grandin stresses the importance of doing art, music, or any kind of hobby that is unrelated to your studies. For an autistic person like Grandin, this can express itself in many ways! For instance, she is obsessed with space and NASA, and reads voraciously about these topics. She mentions people she knows who have nearly pigeon-holed themselves with their studies, but were saved by picking up a violin or learning woodcraft. I can speak to this personally. I am always in a rock band or working on recordings. People ask me how I have the time to do that, and "Don't you go crazy from doing too much?" I answer no, I would go crazy if I didn't have bands and gigs in my life! Because it's not anything like what I study. 

• Learn to work early: Even if your parents didn't turn you loose until grad school, you can still learn to work... Grandin believes in putting kids to work early, not to teach them the value of a dollar or anything like that, but to make sure they can take care of themselves early. Without her own work on a ranch during high school, she may never have found her talent for working with animals. So whatever your discipline, get your hands dirty with it as soon as possible. Intern, volunteer, collaborate, conference, teach, or do whatever your field will let you do. Doing is better than just thinking and writing.

Temple Grandin was a joy to watch. I think she is a person who lives by her own advice and is a role model for autistic folks and other folks who struggle in an academic environment. Her gruff delivery and straightforward manner was refreshing and funny. (At one point she tossed the audience a ball of duct tape she'd found on the floor. "Here you probably want this!"). She closed the talk by saying it was time to go sit at the book table, because she loves to sell her books. ...As she would not let us forget, she is also an excellent businessperson. 

This ends this month's installment of our two-part series on Temple Grandin. I hope her wisdom and example inspires you to push forward on your studies, whether you struggle with a disability or not. Next month we will talk about what kinds of contributions different minds like Grandin's can bring to higher education and to university research.

Brown Bag Recap: Committee Relations

Committee Relations.  It’s a topic of great importance to grad students, and one that covers a lot of ground.  Last week in our office—on Wednesday, September 20, to be precise—we held a Brown Bag discussion on various issues that come up when working with a director (or, as some say, advisor) and committee members on a thesis or dissertation project.  Below we share some of the big takeaways.

Committee Formation

The Grad School has certain requirements concerning who can serve on a thesis or dissertation committee.  We talked about these requirements and noted you can find plenty of information on composition of committees and other facets of completing your degree via the Grad School website.  But we really wanted to talk about the process of choosing committee members, especially a director, that is, someone to chair the committee.  We noted that the form you need to submit once you line up either a thesis director or dissertation director helps to contextualize the situation.  But how to approach a professor about all this?  While running through various scenarios, both clever and clumsy, we noted that sometimes a professor will approach the grad student about working together on a project.  In any case, we firmly agreed on this: keeping in touch with faculty whose work you admire and/or whose courses you’ve taken and found especially relevant or inspiring is especially important as you progress through your first semester or year in your program.  We also agreed that once you have a director lined up, a good procedure for filling out the rest of the committee—if you’re unsure about this part of the process, which can also be tricky—is to ask your director for suggestions.  In the case of at least one participant in our discussion, the director was very glad to help with this important matter.

Working Together

Once everyone is on board, then of course you have to move forward, together.  Some tips for working with your committee members that we found especially useful:

* Plainly and simply, make a schedule.  That is, a semester-long schedule for you and your committee.  Think of it like a course syllabus.  Plan dates for completing drafts, submitting drafts, and meeting with members in the same way you would when sequencing assignments over a semester.  Distribute the schedule to your committee at the start of the term and ask if they have questions.   We considered making such a schedule to be a constructive way to help initiate and keep communication lines open with committee members at different stages of the project.  Another reason for a semester-long plan: many of us, in the course of the big endeavor, end up needing to make changes to the overall schedule of completion as outlined in the proposal.  A shorter schedule can take such changes into account and inform all committee members about them clearly.

* Send updates to your committee.  Think of these as progress reports for the benefit of all involved.  Praise yourself and your committee for work you’ve already completed.  “Look how far we’ve come,” or effusive comments of that sort, can pepper emails and/or face-to-face meetings.  We noted that by sending updates, you can also reassert your role as one of the principal actors moving the project forward.

* Use “I…” statements when corresponding/communicating about submitted work.  Such statements contrast with the all-too-easy hedging questions you might already be using with members such as “Can you please see about possibly responding to this draft within, say, a few weeks or so?” or even the slightly more direct “Please respond at your convenience.”  Better results are likely when you politely state your needs.  For example, “Our schedule has me starting on this next chapter next week, so I need your feedback on the last draft on. . . .”  You get the idea. 

What if…?

The last phase of our discussion on committee relations touched on some of the things that can go right but centered on things that can possibly go wrong.  Let’s say, for example, you need to make a change to your committee—the main thing we thought of in terms of things going wrong.  Sometimes a member leaves to take a position elsewhere, must bow out for personal reasons, or for other reasons turns out to be not quite working out.  What to do?  Our biggest takeaway here: tread lightly but firmly.  The Grad School does have procedures in place for working through committee changes and has form to use if needed for a thesis or a doctoral committee change.  We also noted that a committee change usually won’t happen all of a sudden.  Likely a series of events, signals, or impressions will lead up to it.  In the end, we reemphasized the importance of keeping lines of communication open between you and all committee members.

Final Thoughts

We have a few more Brown Bags scheduled this fall—one of them planned just for faculty and staff.  We also have more formal presentations and workshops happening over the next two weeks.  Check out the details in our previous blog entry.  Email us for more information or to sign up.  We look forward to meeting you and helping you finish your project with flourish.  Now: take a few minutes away from reading, writing, or revising…and wish your committee members a happy fall!

 

Working through Summer

That one time I rode 70 miles RT to NIU
and back, because I didn't have a car.
I coulda gotten a ride, but what fun is that?
Nothing else going on in summer...

On weekends when my kids were with their dad, I'd ride my bike up to the boat ramp and meet a friend who taught kayaking classes. I was the sweep, the person who kept everyone together and made sure they weren't upside-down. I could even rescue them if I had to. (Though none of them ever believed me when I told them this. I'm short and 115 lbs.) All those weekends behind the paddle earned me huge arms and dark shoulders, and about $40 a class. Not enough to pay the bills, but enough to have a taco afterward. The waitresses knew I'd sit outside, stinking from the river as I was. And maybe after that I could ride the bike to get bread and milk ALDI.

This doesn't sound like the work life of someone with a master's degree. But it was. In the six summers since I began that degree, and now the doctorate, I've kayaked, waited tables, sung in a band, taught little kids to read, lifted boxes at a home improvement store, wrote product descriptions, designed industrial soap bottle labels, and tutored high school kids in creative writing for extra cash. Actually, for ALL the cash. There was no other cash in the summer, except for the coins I'd collect in a coffee can, and the occasional fifty my dad would mail me to put gas in the car. And sometimes, there was no car.

As a graduate assistant at a state school, most of us don't get paid for about 3 1/2 months in the summer. And neither do most adjunct professors, anywhere. With most contingent academic contracts, the pay runs through the academic year. Every May 15, my stipend would dry up, and my adjunct paycheck would stop coming. And then the work stopped too. People stopped depending on me. Kids stopped accidentally calling me "professor." It hurt.

One may think, "Well now you are freed up to get another job!" But it's not that simple. Losing the academic and teaching work hurts some of us just as much as losing the money. I want to discuss a few things about "working through summer," give my two cents as a veteran grad assistant, and solicit ideas from you.

I think of summer as three things at work:

That was no fun, that job.

Working for Money: Maintaining your income (or at least part of it) is tricky, and finding a job that fits is even trickier. I did not tell Menard's that I had a master's degree. I will not put teaching kayaking or even teaching little kids to read on my resume. So, should I do something that I can add to my C.V., like try to teach college summer school? Should I suck it up and put my little self to work in a warehouse and sock away normal workin'-(wo)man wages all summer? Or should I rest, and live out of the coffee can? The best summers I've had have been spent resting, with intermittent work.

As you put some summers under your belt, there will be more and more opportunities for summer work, and even assistantships that span the year, or are summer GA gigs. Stay informed about opportunities on your campus. Ask your Graduate Director, and read the email newsletters. I am now, after all those miserable summers, on a 12-month contract thanks to a recommendation from the former Grad Director! (It doesn't make up for lost adjunct work though...the coin can abides.)

Working on Scholarship: The summertime blues are further complicated if you are writing a thesis or dissertation. You HAVE to keep working on the school stuff all summer. Even if two-thirds of your committee is away in another country for two months (my actual current dilemma!). The library is not open late like it usually is. You are not on campus all the time, surrounded by other working students, your advisors, and the general productive buzz of the university. You lose touch with your tribe. It is easy to get out of every good habit that your work and social environment gives you.

But you HAVE to keep at it. The whiteboard is my summer friend. I list everything I need to do, every day. (I make schedules on paper for the bigger picture.) Use methods like Pomodoro or "5 minutes a day" to ensure even the tiniest steps are being taken toward your goals.  This is a lonely, lonely time in the writing of the dissertation or thesis. Exercise, connect, read, or do whatever you need to to keep yourself grounded and healthy. But keep at it. You can pick up with advisors in the fall, and they will be happy you have something to share. Unlike with coursework and teaching work, professors (and the university) do expect you to be at work on the thesis or dissertation year-round. This is so hard, I know. But don't forget about it in your struggle to keep food on the table and keep the kids in pool passes.

Three summers ago, this is
literally what my coin jar was for.

Working on Yourself -- the Professional Identity Crisis:
I have a few colleagues of quality who do not experience this, and who are happy to "live out of the can" and rest for a long spell. That seems like the sane thing to do! But many of us grad students are driven in a way that can't be powered down. It's a blessing during the school year, and a curse during breaks. Personally, when I lose my titles (instructor, "professor," committee member, etc.), I lose a little bit of myself. I wear cut-offs around town and quick-dry shorts to kayak and no one addresses me with anything like deference. I become a nobody, and a poor nobody. Taking demeaning jobs, as I sometimes have, only reinforces this. If I had the pay or the position I might be happy to lounge around and dress like a slob for awhile. Who cares what anyone thinks? But when you are still crossing the impostor syndrome threshold, have $7 in your bank account, and realize that it's your former student putting milk and eggs in your cart at the food pantry (that happened), life is hard. And you're not sure where you fit. Don't forget that this is only temporary. You are working through summer for a very good reason.

In conclusion

I will make it through, like so many of my colleagues before me. And you can too! I'm looking at a May 2019 graduation with a Ph. D. (It will take me a year longer than it will take most of my cohort. I'm the only one with kids, and that's my standing excuse.) That means I have less than a summer and a half remaining of squeezing by, wallowing in existential crisis, rolling coins, and forcing myself to work alone.  As painful as it has been to work through all these summers, now that I can see the end of it coming, I know it will all be worth it. I already have great memories of pool time with the kids (paid for in sweaty cash), bike rides to the ice cream shop, and my daughter's August birthday parties. Look at that! I'm already forgetting the terrible jobs and summer insecurities.

Now if I can just make it till Tuesday when I get paid for my band's last gig...

To misquote T.S. Eliot: August is the cruellest month. Let's survive it, let's work through it, and let's all look forward to September's welcome return.

How do you work through summer?

Doing Grad School with Kids

One afternoon as I stood outside the elementary school, waiting for the doors to open and pour out little screaming humans (including my then second-grader), I overheard two Midwestern moms in active-wear talking about a mutual friend.

"Did you know she's going back to school? I mean, GREEAAD school!"

"Really? She's gonna be so busy, oh my gosh. That's just too much, GREEAAD school, with kids and a house..."

"Yeah I think it's just selfish to go to GREEAAD school like that. I mean, she's got her bachelor's why not just stay where you're at..."

I was in my second year of "GREEAAD school," and in addition to the stinker I was waiting for at the elementary school, I had a toddler at home.  Their words didn't hurt me, but they made me chuckle a bit. While graduate study isn't for everyone, who are these judging women to assume their friend isn't an awesome person who can handle the "triple burden" of school, work, and home?  If I can do it, other women can too. They were selling even themselves short, I thought.  (Maybe they just really loved staying all day in yoga pants that much, I thought snidely.)

So what do we do, as parents in graduate school, to keep ourselves emotionally afloat? And conversely, how do we know we're doing what's right for our kids? Support and understanding is probably thin on the ground, whether you live in the affluent suburbs where success = $, or in a crowded city (or empty rural area) where people are just struggling to get by and don't care to make head or tails of what strange thing it is you do at the Local University. Even seeking out other students like us is hard. I've met a few couples and single parents at the school I attend, but just having kids is not a guarantee that you will have anything else in common to talk about.

I argue that we look to the source of our seeming "burden" for some relief: look to your children. 

Early Childhood: The smallest children can understand that you are in school, that you are smart, and that you are atypical. They may even cutely brag about you to their classmates. (Once I brought my son to class with me and he told all my students how smart I am. He was only 7, so he got away with it.) It's an early model for doing what you love, and working independently. Since early childhood, my son and daughter have never doubted that they can achieve what they set their minds to, or that mothers can have important careers.

Middle Childhood: Going to school brings them the ability to share in what you study! You can enrich their school experience by sharing what you know with them. My son always impresses his teachers by his background knowledge. Having grown up with a mother who does school for a living, he knows a thing or two.  (Since he could talk, I have answered honestly, and in as much detail as was appropriate, every question he asked me. I've been told I'll spoil his imagination! Baloney.)

And here's the best part: School-aged children can also start helping around the house, not only because they should anyway, but because you have enlisted them in your campaign! The family is going to benefit from your degree. They can contribute to you getting it done, whether it's by loading the dishwasher or playing quietly on Saturday mornings. You can all earn that degree together.

Adolescence: Tween intelligence and attitudes bring a whole new level of give-and-take into your relationship with your children. Children this age need to be reminded that you are spending so much time on your schoolwork because it will make you better. If it makes you better, it makes the whole family better.  With their growing sense of self, they should be able to understand why they don't always come first. Raising independent kids is important if you plan to have an intense career life and to have a life of the mind. And they will thank you for it. My son still proudly tells people what I do (though bragging wouldn't be cute from a 12-year-old), even if he can't remember exactly what I study.

Teens: If you are in grad school with teens, you probably have not been in grad school their whole life. They may have to get used to it. I don't have a teen (yet) so I can't comment. I will be done before then. :P  But what I have said about balance, independence, and team effort still applies.

2010: Holding my Bachelor's degree,
while 7 months pregnant with kid #2.

There is a myth that children will resent parents for "neglecting" them for other pursuits. It's nonsense, and those moms I overheard were just perpetuating it. Doing what you need to do for yourself, and fitting that in with your family life is not neglect. It's balance. Your busy and interesting life will complement your child's own busy and interesting life. It will certainly not detract or distract from it.

So, if the university parent meet-ups and attempts to befriend non-student parents haven't worked out, turn to those who already know you, and whom you already have a lot in common with. You can't lay all of your problems on them, and you can't make them your confidantes.  But you can draw from their endless energy, contribute to their own lifelong learning, and go in as a family team to kick this degree's butt.  You will all come out very different from most of the people you know. But that is not a bad thing. This journey enriches all of our lives, and paves the way for our children's future successes.

Finally, a word about the advantages of doing grad school with kids. Many of us can point to our little imps as the impetus for doing school in the first place. And what made us want to do it for ourselves is that having kids makes us want to be the best people we can be!  I didn't really go "back to school" until my son was 9 months old. After five years of undergrad, three for an MA, and four more of PhD-ing... well, he's 12 now and he's never seen me do anything else. To stop now would be to abandon a goal as old as my first best creation (him). While, again, we can't rest our goals and fears on their little shoulders, we can certainly look to them as a major source of inspiration, a cornerstone that child-free grad students do not have the benefit of building upon.

Book Review: Writing the Doctoral Dissertation

At the beginning of any dissertation journey, both the journey and its destination seem hazy and amorphous. As the years of coursework rolled by, I had felt as if the diss was a huge, distant thing on the horizon that was painfully, slowly coming into view. It started to take a shape, and it became more and more real as I could see it looming there. But when I found myself close up, at the end of coursework, at the top of the field exam climb, I realized it wasn't a thing at the top of that mountain. I looked out across another chasm instead, with no clearer image of what the diss really was than before all my hard work.

Enough of that! I won't deny that this poetic sort of thinking about dissertating can be helpful, and is my usual mode as an English major. But especially as a disorganized English major, and as anyone in any discipline who has ever had trouble seeing the clear shape and scope of a project, I needed help thinking practically. I needed help making a plan. There are so many good books on the market, but many of them are titled in metaphorical language, some inspiring, some terrifying: Survival Guide! One of the books in our office has a cover image of a stormy sea with a flimsy lifesaver floating on it.  No thanks.  My dissertation is not the Titanic.

In Writing the Doctoral Dissertation: A Systematic Approach, the dissertation is not characterized as a "quest" or a "trial by fire" or anything other than what it is. It's a writing project! The book turns the diss into a procedure, like any other.  A procedure with linear steps (some cyclical ones too), with deadlines, and with clear goals. Gone are the musings about "demystifying" the "journey" or some other useless crap that a person in the throes of drafting could have thought of themselves.  If what you need is a clear, disinterested voice, untinged by commiseration or by condescension, to say to you "DO EXACTLY THIS"... then this is the book you should read.

Also, this book is fairly new, like of-this-decade new.  Its authors know about current trends in scholarship in various fields, alternative sorts of dissertations, and contemporary expectations for research in an age of globally accessible information and project collaborations.

In my youth I was always the straight-through writer, never an outliner. In grad school I began to see the purpose of having a structure and some goal-points in mind before beginning a project. But I never put that to use beyond the twenty or so pages required for my term papers.  Assorted piles of papers with color coded post-it notes were enough semi-organization to get me through. But now, as I face this new ~200 page project (journey, chasm, abyss, whatever you want to call it), this book has me obsessed with the checklist, the calendar, the breakdown, and even the "budget" of the dissertation.  In a very good way.

Writing the Doctoral Dissertation: A Systematic Approach (by Gordon B. Davis, Clyde A. Parker, and Detmar W. Straub, Barron's, 2012) is available online and in the NIU bookstore.  Here is a summary from one of the contributors:

http://www.gs.howard.edu/sbe/text/reading5.pdf

At $12.99 it will be one of your best grad school investments (or maybe a close second to the coffee pot).

Director, Advisor, Partner? Find Your Type of Committee Head

This is the second post of a two-part series on choosing a thesis or dissertation director. The first post was called “To Choose or Not to Choose … A Director, That Is!” published on March 24, 2016. Today's post focuses on models of working arrangements with advisors.

Sonja K. Foss and William Waters note that such working arrangements often wind up being one of the main disputes between a student and his or her advisor. (For more information on what Foss and Waters call the “three common misalignments” between advisors and students, see  Destination Dissertation: A Traveler’s Guide to a Done Dissertation, starting on page 298.)

In fact, I recently talked with a student who encountered some problems working with her committee head. This director instructed this student to conduct her research on an entirely different subject group than the group she had proposed to study, and the student had to change her project as a result.

While the student above was satisfied at the conclusion of her dissertation, she was upset that she couldn't pursue the exact study-avenue she had wanted to. So we hope to reach those early in the thesis/dissertation process. Perhaps in knowing the different working arrangements that are possible, you can ask more relevant questions at the outset of setting up your committee.

Advising Models

Foss and Waters define an advising model as “the basic approach to mentoring that the two of you will use to do the work of the dissertation,” and they describe three working models: “replication, apprenticeship, and cocreation” (299). 

The Replication Model

In Foss and Waters' “Replication Model,” a director “supplies the basic plan for your dissertation" (300). This model might even lead to the student’s researching of a question of interest to the director as opposed to one of the student's own interests. With this arrangement, the student should “listen to the instructions of [his] advisor” and try to “perform as close to [the advisor’s] ideal” as possible, say Foss and Waters (300).

• I’ll call this committee head a “director,” then, based on the connotative control inherent in that term.

The Apprenticeship Model

In the “Apprenticeship Model,” according to Foss and Waters, “you have some freedom in how to accomplish the tasks involved in the dissertation, but [these tasks] are assigned and directed by your advisor” (300). Foss and Waters say that with this arrangement, a student’s “primary job is to perform an insightful and credible interpretation” of the study while the advisor “monitors [the] work” (300). This plan calls for the student to attempt to complete “the processes [one’s director] recommends, listening to her critiques and … negotiating places where [one’s] own vision … can come through” (301).

• I’ll call this committee head an “advisor” based on Foss and Waters’ description that this person also gives “mini-lectures on best practices “as well as her recommendations” as to “how far you can deviate from the boundaries she has established” (300 – 301).

The Cocreation Model

Finally, Foss and Waters describe the “Cocreation Model” of direction, where both student and advisor “contribute in substantial ways to the plan for [the] dissertation”; the advisor and student work together to synthesize ideas, but the student “drive[s] the research agenda” (301). Foss and Waters say that in this model, “communication is reciprocal” and that an advisor may “deliberately hold back” on offering advice (301) in order to urge the student towards taking on more responsibility.

• I’ll dub this committee head a “partner,” being a literal interpretation of the model described.

My Experience

Obviously many committee chairs will employ working models that fall somewhere in the middle of these "types." If I had to choose the model of the working relationship I have with my advisor, I'd call it an “apprenticeship,” though it may approach a partnership in some respects. My advisor has always given me direction on my proposed study, she has sent me relevant articles, and she did once become concerned that I was deviating too much from the original plan (after I had changed my focus a bit). Here, she indeed indicated to me how far I could deviate from my proposal, but overall, she has allowed me to take my research where it needs to go.

From what I've heard from others, the "apprenticeship" is probably the most common working arrangement between student and committee head. However, the director mentioned at the start of this post obviously followed something like the “Replication Model.” 

Which model does your committee head follow? We'd love to hear from you about your experiences, especially if you have advice that could help others (without mentioning professor names). Please comment or post to our Facebook group!