Dr. Steve Tippins, who has sat on over 300 dissertation committees, shares seven lessons he wishes he'd learned earlier. Plan data collection before you start so it actually supports your analysis. Pick a tenured chair and avoid committee members with conflicting personalities. Treat your dissertation as an asset for future publications and consulting work, not just a hurdle to clear.
I want to talk now about 7 things that I and many people wish they knew before they began their dissertation journey. I'm Dr. Steve Tippins Ph.D. I've been in academia for over 35 years and served on over 300 dissertations. So, first, too many people jump into the dissertation process without knowing what the process is. They just start and wait to be told what to do next. —And unfortunately, when you get to this level, it's not like you're in a class and there's a syllabus and due dates. It's, you know, you're just kind of there and they're waiting for you to do things. So you're waiting for them to tell you and they're waiting for you to do things. And a lot— many times that means a lot of wasted time. So understand what the process is. The second point, and I've seen this way too many times, people get into their dissertation but they haven't thought about where they're gonna get data to actually do the analysis they said they're gonna do. They may have a wonderful proposal, all done, all completed, a brilliant idea, but then they need data. So think about this early in the process and not after your proposal has been accepted. 'Cause then you may have to go backwards and go back to your committee and go back to the IRB to change things. So for example, in my dissertation, I needed something like 187 responses, but I hadn't figured out where I was gonna go get 'em. I got my proposal approved and now it's like, okay, go find someplace to get data. And fortunately I did, but I spent maybe a month or more trying to figure out where's the place I can get these things. And then finally setting it up and collecting data. I would've easily finished probably 2 months faster. Mm-hmm. If I thought of this ahead of time. This leads to point number 3. I've collected my data. What analysis do I do? Well, if I don't know what my data is going to be, I certainly don't know what the analysis is going to be. But it gets even more insidious than that because you say, "I'm going to use this validated instrument and it's going to give me data." Great. Committee says, "Wonderful." But now you have to make sure the data that you get can actually fit the analysis that you want to do? Or in a quantitative study, does the data meet the underlying assumptions of what you want to do? In my research, or my study for my dissertation, I collected data. I got— had a survey, got it all in, and then realized, oh, the data that I've got doesn't fit the test that I want to do. So I again spent several weeks going back and through seeing what tests is there available for me to do, get to the analysis I want to do. Would have been nice to have thought about that earlier when there was downtime earlier. So again, delaying me along the way. The fourth thing you want to think about, or I should have and everybody should think about, is how to structure your committee. Question I always ask people is, your dissertation chair, tenured if you're at an institution where tenure is granted, because tenure means your fellow faculty members have voted for you to be promoted and earn tenure. Well, if you have an untenured chair, that means their fellow faculty members have not had the chance to vote for them, but if they're your chair, there may be situations where they have to prod someone along or get somebody to go do something. Well, they may be reluctant. If they aren't tenured. In my case, I had a tenured chair. Great. What happened to me was at the last minute, the committee said, "You know, we want to put this other person on here so they get some experience on the committee." Well, this was after the proposal was approved and all kinds of other things, and they made some comments that caused me to think, "Oh God, do I have to go back and change things?" Eventually, the chair tempered those comments,— but thinking about the composition. And the last thing you want to do is go find two experts in their field who are well-renowned but don't like each other. You do not want your dissertation to be a battlefield for their ideological egos. The fifth point, and this is one I hear rarely talked about: you have to write a dissertation in order to graduate. Great, do that. Finish it. The only good dissertation is a done dissertation. All that., but also think of your dissertation as an asset that you're creating for yourself. So, what can it do for me after I finish? How can it be turned into publications? I had a client once who said that they wanted to be a consultant. So when we worked with their dissertation, I was continuing to tell them, Okay, remember you're going to be able to pull parts out to be part of your consulting portfolio. Portfolio. So let's think about that. So thinking about your dissertation now to defend, but also of what value can it be for you afterwards, is a great thing because you're going to put a lot of time and energy into this. You might as well get more rewards from it. The sixth point: this is a long and lonely journey, okay? And it's really easy to, you know, procrastinate or feel guilty for not working on things. Time management is very, very, very important in this process. One, it can help you keep coming back to the dissertation. But two, it can help you understand that you don't have to work on your dissertation 28 hours a day. You get to be alive. You get to do some things. I remember being in the middle of writing my dissertation and someone asking me to go out and play golf. And And I said, "Oh, that would be great." And I spent the entire 3.5 hours on the golf course worrying about why I wasn't doing my dissertation. So I, one, I wasn't doing my dissertation, and two, I didn't enjoy the 3.5 hours. So I eventually realized, well, I was probably gonna waste 3.5 hours somewhere during the week, so I might as well waste it doing this and enjoy it while I'm doing it, and then go back and do the dissertation. So time management skills, time management plans, are really important for you along the way and also to get you finished. And the 7th point, and that's self-care. This, like I said, is a long journey. It's really easy to stop doing some things like, "Oh, I'm not going to worry about vegetables for a while," or, you know, "I'm going to be sitting 20 hours a day. I'm not going to worry about walking until I get done." Yeah. Well, the time you don't take care of yourself, you have to then repair yourself afterwards. And I like to say, I want you to, when you get to the end, to be able to enjoy what you've done instead of having to go repair yourself for all the damage you've physically done to yourself during the process. So self-care is highly important. And as always, if you're looking for help on this journey, click the link below to join our free dissertation help community.
