“Ask, and it shall be given you; seek, and ye shall find; knock, and it shall be opened unto you.” – Matthew 7:7
I recently heard from reader Chris White, who emailed me a number of insightful questions the answers to which expand on my last post, so with his okay I thought I'd edit our conversation and share it here.
I have been reading your blog on your A.T. Still experience. How are the classes and what are the assignments?
I took two courses my first term, the first of two I'll do on Finance in Higher Education, and the first course on Research. Both of these were good. The coursework so far is geared toward two things, first getting you active in your dissertation process literally from Day One, with the rest focusing on developing skills useful for university administration.
In the Research course we decided first thing what our research topic would be for the dissertation. Just like that! That sounds intimidating, but during the admissions process I was sent information about this and what to expect, and it let me know to consider this even before class began. This was also less of a deal for me because I had the topic before I even applied. We then put together a problem statement with subproblems, did an initial review of the literature,
recruited committee members, and did an initial research proposal. It was intense, but not unmanageable.
The Finance course revolved around a series of assignments that culminated in development of a five year budget for a university department. It required competent use of a spreadsheet, but not prior Accounting or Finance coursework.
Both courses required a lot of interaction through discussion boards. As doctoral students, we were expected to be useful enough to comment helpfully on our colleagues' research proposals and department budgets, and I indeed found that my classmates had good ideas that I hadn't considered. Both courses also featured experienced instructors who were supportive and fair graders, and who didn't micromanage their courses the way one might find in an undergraduate course.
The only thing I didn't really understand was that in the Finance course there were two times when we were assigned to write about the first chapter of our dissertations. As a first term student I didn't even know what mine was going to be at that point, so that was a little confusing. Also, while I understand that the idea is to incorporate the dissertation process within the coursework -- and that's part of what attracted me to the program in the first place! -- I didn't find that particular assignment was very confluent with the flow of a Finance course.
Next term I'll be taking two courses again. One will be on proposal writing, which means how to apply for grants, a very useful skill for a university faculty or staff member. The other will be a seven semester-hour Dissertation course, about which I actually don't know very much, and which I think at this point I'm equally excited about and dreading! It's the first of four I'll take throughout the program, and I know it's where I'll do the bulk of the research and writing for my dissertation.
I realize you are also starting the dissertation, is there a lot of writing during the week as well?
There's a pretty good amount of writing, but it's not an overpowering amount. Although, I have an advantage here that I do a lot of writing and when I get going I can write a lot of material pretty quickly. Of course, at this level just writing a lot of stuff isn't enough. One's responses must be researched, at least those on the assignments.
Just curious to how much time you have been spending a week for class.
I'd say I spend about fifteen hours per week on classwork. It was a lot, but not unworkable. I was okay with the two courses, but I wouldn't want to try three at a time. In fact, I could tell that I was at capacity because once or twice I had something happen at work or at home and it meant assignments coming in a few days late as I worked to catch up.
Anyway, the next term will start on Monday, so next up will be a look ahead at what's to come.