Heed the words of
AKA_Monet. Graduate school is about endurance so you have to have a strong mental and spiritual constitution to navigate through the bureaucracy, politics and lack of "life" outside of school.
While I think my research is important, I am also aware that the Ph.D. gives me a social and cultural capital to open doors that would have been closed to me as a Black woman. Make sure you have a clear idea why you are putting yourself through this process. I wanted to teach young adults and especially challenge young Black women to look beyond media representations that teaches us to look beyond ourselves for validation. A PhD gives me a captive audience and a credibility that having years of teaching experience did not. With only 2% of the US population holding a Ph.D., people are more willing to listen to what I have to say than treating my experience as an valid source of knowledge. As much as I disagree with this idea, I have to be pragmatic. If I want to reach more black girls that enter into the academy, I need the Ph.D. Keep the reason for this sacrafice at the forefront of your mind because it's easy to lose focus when you get bogged down in reading journal articles, writing countless papers and spending several hours in the library.
Here's some questions to ponder (sorry if some of this is a repeat)
Ask yourself, am I willing to find ways to keep me motivated when the "grind" gets to be too much?
Am I willing to delay gratification while friends are getting married, having children and moving on with their lives?
Am I able to take constructive (and not so constructive) feedback from advisors and committee members without losing my cool?
Do I have confidence in my writing and speaking abilities?
Will I be able to make a return on my financial and mental/spiritual investment? Esp. if you end up in the professoriate, you won't make the money you really should but having flexibility and autonomy often makeup for not making as much money (I teach 3 days a week; get May-Aug and January off which balances out not making alot of money).
Do I know how to negoitate with a variety of personality types to construct a committee that will facilitate my graduation?
Am I a procrastinator and how can I change that to make myself self-motivated and organized?
A good resource for prospective and current grad students is
www.phinished.org. It's a site for MA and Ph.D. students needing support to get through their theses and dissertation. Check out their archive about setting writing and working goals and read through some of the folks trials and triumphs. This site helped me to stop "polishing a turd" which was chapter 4 of my dissertation.
May the Force Be with You,
PhDiva
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