In this solo talk, PhD coach Steve Tippins (Ph.D.) draws on 35 years of academic experience and work with over 300 dissertations to map the typical doctoral journey and expose the hidden challenges that cause many students to drop out. He begins by describing coursework as an intensified version of earlier classes, emphasizing deep engagement with literature, critical thinking, and the need to demonstrate expertise through citations. He then explains the role of comprehensive exams (comps) as a bridge between coursework and dissertation, noting the variability across institutions. Once the dissertation phase begins, he highlights the sudden loss of structured syllabi and deadlines, creating an amorphous environment that can stall progress. Tippins discusses the massive time commitment (often 50‑70 hours per week), the isolation inherent in working alone, and the emotional toll of imposter syndrome. He advises on practical coping mechanisms: setting boundaries, taking intentional breaks, and seeking accountability through coaches or supportive peers. He reframes committee feedback and revisions as opportunities rather than failures, stressing that perfection is less important than completion. Throughout, he underscores the transformative skill set gained during the PhD and encourages viewers to join his free Dissertation Help Community, which offers a five‑step program, weekly accountability, and seasoned dissertation chair support to help students finish their dissertations.
Chapters
Half of all PhD students never finish their program. And it's not because they're not intelligent enough. It's because they just don't know what to expect. I'm Steve Tippins and I've worked on over 300 dissertations and been in academia for 35 years. And I have helped hundreds of doctoral students cross the finish line through coaching at Beyond PhD coaching. Today I'm going to tell you about the life of a doctoral student, how it progresses, and how we get from the beginning to until the end. Where does a doctoral journey start? Typically it starts with coursework. And coursework is just like all the other courses you took before this, but kind of on steroids. You're expected to do more. You're expected to be involved in the discourse and in the discussion of literature. Think of this as training for developing your problem and developing your literature review. So when you get an an assignment and you get to look at literature, go deep into it. Your faculty are going to expect deep, reasoned responses. There's no hiding in the back row anymore. They want to know that you know what you're talking about. It's also your chance to engage in the literature and engage in the material because these are the foundations for what you're going to be doing. But also remember your coursework. It's similar to previous coursework you've had. There's limited time, a quarter or a semester, you get a syllabus with due dates, you get check ins frequently with faculty members. So coursework, while difficult, similar pattern to what you're used to. Just as an aside, in my doctoral program, I was the only student in the program. So if I didn't show up to class or I wasn't prepared and nothing was going to happen in class, however, I did have some great faculty members who taught me how to engage with the literature. And that's what you want to learn, how to engage with literature, how to understand what they're saying, and how to bring not criticizing, but critical thought process to all of your reading. And when I say engage with the literature, one of the first things that comes to mind for me is be curious. What are they saying? Why are they saying it? How did they say it? What methodology did they use? Why did they use that methodology? So that you have a strong basis for understanding things and saying in a class, whether it's one on one or with a number of other students. Here is my opinion on something and it's backed up by the work that has been done by and you get to now say Jones and Smith or Tippins 2022. You get to cite the literature and show how it supports what you're saying. You also get to say how the literature may not support. So you're becoming involved in an active conversation with the literature. But once your coursework finishes, that's when the real adventure begins. Now, I want to differentiate for a moment. There are some schools that get you finished with your and then you move on to your dissertation. At other schools, there's an intermediate step, and that's what's become known as comps or comprehensive exams or some sort of capstone to your classes. Comps can take a number of forms at a number of schools. Now, comps are kind of show me what you're going to be doing in your dissertation. Let me see what your plans are for your dissertation. It's kind of like a prospectus for your dissertation. At other schools, comps can be. Here are a number of questions about your field of study, and address these by using the literature to address them many times. Now those comps are okay, you've got a month or two months, some time period. Here are your questions. Address them. Turn that in. The more draconian method of comps is, hey, in three months we're going to give you some questions about your material that you studied in your classes. And that's about as much direction as you get. And you walk in for a day or two and each day you're presented with some questions and you just get to write on them. But either way you look at comps, it's an end to your classwork when you pass, you're now in the dissertation phase. Once you enter the dissertation phase at some schools you can be considered all but dissertation or abd. At other schools, you have to pass your proposal to be abd. Now, I've seen over the last number of years a new categorization. And I don't know if I like it or not, but it's called PhD C, which is PhD candidate. Some people could look at PhD and think you have a PhD but it's either ABD or PhD. Now the fun begins once you move from coursework to dissertation. All of a sudden the rules have changed. There's no more syllabus, there's no more hard due dates. Yes, you register for a class each semester or each quarter, but there's not any ramification for not making a lot of progress. You just register for it again. In fact, I like to think of these classes as more accounting measures. It's just a way they can charge you, you tuition, it's pretty much not anything other than that. So moving forward, all of a sudden we go from a course based module with syllabus and due dates to, wow, it's pretty amorphous. Where do I go? How do I move forward? This can be a stumbling block for a lot of people. That freedom and the fact that you may not get faculty who are following up with you frequently. If you're in the dissertation phase or really anywhere along your doctoral program journey and finding the need for support or accountability, I have a five step process that's designed to help people finish. Please click the link below. You can join our free dissertation help program and we'll help you move forward. Okay, let's talk about the reality of working on your dissertation. It's kind of amorphous. There's not a lot of guidance. If you do have a university that has a template, that's a great thing to be basing everything on. What do I do? How much time do I put in? You know, there's, there's no good answer to that. But it could be 50, 60, 70 hours a week that you're working on this because it can become all consuming. You want to make sure that you understand that it does take a lot of time, so the concept of weekends might go away. Understand, if you have a family, let them know what you're getting into and what you're doing, because it's going to take a lot of your time. One other thing I want to let you know is even when you get a break, your mind is still working on things. But I do want to encourage you to take breaks. You have to have some time for freedom for your mind. But you also have to understand this is going to be an all consuming endeavor that you're getting into. One of the hardest parts of a dissertation is isolation. You do this alone. Yes, you may have cohorts, you may have fellow students, you have chairs, you have committees, but, but you're going back and doing it alone. There was a feature years and years and years ago about a marathon. And the key phrase they kept saying during this feature on the marathon is, you run the marathon alone. You do your dissertation alone. Your friends and family may not understand exactly what you're doing. I frequently hear people say, well, yeah, come on, I wrote a paper, I took a weekend, I got it done, it was eight pages. Why haven't you finished? They don't understand that you're creating something out of nothing and you're getting what might be a strange group of people to approve it. While you're doing your dissertation, you may see friends and family furthering their careers, taking vacations, doing all kinds of interesting things that you aren't able to do. While you are creating chapters one through five, just understand that is a process that you get to go through and there is an end. Now the idea of imposter syndrome comes up at times. The educational system is kind of built on a medieval model where the dissertation chair is kind of like the expert and you go off and search in the field for a while and eventually they give you the blessing that you have to remember you are earning your way into the community, the academia, but you are earning your way in. You get to explain what you're doing. You get to be the staunch supporter of what you're doing. We talk about isolation many times. Your chair and committee are going to be pretty hands off. They're off doing other things. When you have something for them, you get it to them, and hopefully they're going to relatively promptly work on it. But when they don't see you, they may not be thinking about, gee, I wonder how Steve's doing, Maybe I'll get in touch with him. That's fairly atypical. So learning to work in isolation. Now, what you're going to find, though, is when you get done with this, especially if you're going into academia, a lot of your work is going to be done in isolation anyways, moving forward. So it's a great training ground for getting ready for this. Yes, you're going to put a lot of time into this, but your body and your mind also need breaks. So build some in and build in breaks that are meaningful for you. I've accomplished this section. I'm going to have candy bar or I've done this other thing. I'm going to take a half a day and go to the spa. When I was in graduate school, my university happened to own a golf course and I would go very infrequently and play golf. And I found when I was out there, I was feeling guilty all the time. Oh my gosh, I'm not working on this. I'm not doing this other stuff. Until one day I realized, well, you know, why don't I just burn the money that I came out here to do? And more importantly, I'm going to waste this much time anyways during the week, so why don't I waste it all at once and enjoy it and not feel guilty about it? That made the golf more enjoyable. Unfortunately, it didn't make it any better, but it made it more enjoyable. While your friends and family may not have a deep understanding of what you're doing, it is really good, though, to have someone that you can talk to, someone who may not totally understand what you're doing, but someone who will listen and not try to give you answers. But having that friend, having support, having a coach who's on your side is incredibly, incredibly important for us during this isolation process. One of the things you'll find in this process is committee members seemingly love to put red marks all over papers. Revisions are not failures. Revisions are opportunities for improvement. Because your committee members have been through this before, many of them have published some. Some of them, many times. They understand the process and what needs to be there. So every time ask for a change, you get to understand, why are they asking for this change? What's important about this change. And one of the secrets a lot of people don't understand is you actually don't have to accept every change. Yes, many of them are going to be wonderful and you do it, but some of the changes, they may not understand exactly what you're doing. It's going to give you a chance to better explain what you're doing and also argue for the, for example, the methodology you're using and explain why you're using a methodology. And the better you understand what you're doing, the more likely it is for them to say, okay, I see what you're doing. Let's have a discussion about this and open up opportunities for you to learn more and your material to be accepted. I want to emphasize, though, perfection is not the goal. The goal is to finish. Okay, done. There's an old saying, the only good dissertation is a done dissertation. And that's true. Finishing your dissertation is your goal, so you then can get out and do the real work and in my mind, help save the world. Revisions are important because sometimes you make a mistake. I have a friend who spent an entire weekend debugging a program he had written for his dissertation, and it took him probably 30 hours to understand that in one line of this code, he used a zero instead of an o once he found that everything worked. So understand that revisions are important in helping you finish. The life of a doctoral student may be difficult, it may take a lot of work, it may be challenging, but it also should be rewarding. You're taking on a big project, you're learning new skills, you're learning ways to attack problems, you're learning how to do research. All of that ability, all of those skills are going to be combined within you. It will change how you see the world and you'll now have the skills as well as, hopefully the confidence to go out and tackle the big problems in your field. If you're looking for more support help to move forward, check out our free Dissertation Help Community. We're here to help you. Once you join the community, you get free access to our five step program to help you finish your dissertation. In addition, we provide weekly support and accountability from seasoned dissertation chairs who help you finish and are on your side in the process.
