How does a PhD student with a family plan her life and career? Here are the answers that we’ve come up with so far….
The current plan:
– Stay here this summer. I turned down projects in Peru, South Africa and Kenya to stay here and study for comps. Advice from those who know is to stay focused and in New Orleans until comps are done. So, I’m taking this advice and speeding up my program.
– I got approval to do the last of my advanced biostats through independent study… so the summer will be a rough time of advanced evaluation design methods (ie: the class where you only “speak greek” — tau, lambda, beta, etc.), regression, and (the REALLY scary one) categorical. Just to give a sense of the scope… these are usually three separate classes.
– Finalize my committee over the summer.
– Apply for funding for preliminary data collection for the prospectus.
– If I feel confident from the summer, take comps in October. (They are offered in October, February, and June.)
– Celebrate the completion of comps with a TRIP in October/November! (Current plan is to take the invitation to go to New Delhi, India, and visit Bela Auntie, Raja, and Chiya.)
– (Hopefully) have some funding at the start of the New Year.
– Current top contender for 2006 research destination… Lima, Peru.
– Work on prospectus over summer 2006.
– Have a baby in late summer/early fall 2006.
– Have six months with baby during which I’ll only work part-time and continue to work on prospectus, apply for disseration funding, and finally present the prospectus.
That is a far as we can see right now and so many things could change (I decide to use secondary data at either stage, we don’t get pregnant, we get pregnant sooner/later, etc., etc.) After this, it will be collecting disseration data, doing the disseration, defending, and graduating. Too hard to see that far right now! As adventurous, enthusiastic, and curious as I am, it will be interesting to see how closely I follow this plan.
Besides, all plans can and should be altered as learning opportunities arise!
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