A PhD student describes learning to trust their advisor's guidance and work at their own pace. They initially overloaded on coursework, only later realizing they could have taken fewer credits without slowing their dissertation. The biggest lesson: don't rush the process or announce graduation before you're actually done.
I really did not know what I was walking into. And I mean, with the help of my advisor, yeah, I didn't know. And so now, looking back, it's some things I probably could have done better as far as understanding the process earlier, but wasn't until I really got into it that I really understood it. But trust in the process. And that's what I had to keep reminding myself. And my advisor kept telling me, stop trying to tell everybody when you graduate, because I started thinking, oh yeah, we got this plan of study. Okay, I'm gonna do this, this, this, this, this. No, no, she— it was reality check. It was a reality check. And so yeah, that's the biggest thing is trust the process. But no, you know, some of my cohorts, they graduated before me. And so you go at your own pace, and life is lifey. And I think that was the biggest piece I take away from where I am now. For the dissertation writing part, I kind of did too much of the credit hours. That was my lessons learned too. I did not have to take that many credit hours for what I needed for the writing piece. And I think that was one of the things, if I look back, I probably could have took one credit hour for one of the semesters because I kind of wasted some of the hours. And I think that was what I learned from that piece of it.
