Dissertation Blues

One of my students called me from Chicago tonight, crying.

"Dr. H, I can't focus on my research analysis. I just can't make myself do it any more."

She is overwhelmed: family members have come forward as victims of crime. Her brother had unexpected open heart surgery and on the way to visit him, her grandmother had a massive heart attack and died. My dear student is working with traumatized children for her internship--a very emotionally expensive endeavor.

No wonder she can't focus on her dissertation.

There is something about writing a dissertation that people don't understand unless they have been down that road themselves. When you are analyzing research data and trying to write about it, you have to isolate yourself from everyone and everything else--to completely immerse yourself in your data so you can write what is necessary and expected. It is a very difficult process. I remember having to do it when I was a newlywed. Sam would be in the other room, handsome, delightfully available, interested in me. And there I was, two weeks after saying "I do," locked into the study hammering away on the computer for hours at a time.

"Honey," I'd yell through the door.

"Yes?"

"Are you still there?"

"Yes."

"Will you be there in 20 minutes?"

"Yes....why?"

"Because I'm coming out of here in 20 minutes to take a break."

"Yipee!!!"

Bless his heart, he never complained that I was holed up in there for most of the first two months of our marriage. I hated it. But the more time I spent alone in there, the sooner I'd be done. Until I was done, I was doomed to be alone with columns of numbers and the frustration that my dissertation chair expected me to make yet another set of revisions. I could hardly stand it. For someone like me who doesn't struggle with writing, it wasn't such a terrible experience. But for some people who have trouble putting sentences together or who can hardly understand the statistical analyses they are reporting, it is painful.

My student is exhausted, overwhelmed, and fearful of how I will view her if she takes some time off to get her feet back under her. This is a very familiar concern to me. Another of my students is trying to time her dissertation defense to be held the week before she is due to have her baby. Yet another student is trying to work around his wife's medical residency. They're all tired and frustrated. They hate going off by themselves, getting a babysitter in some cases, and confining themselves to the library, study, or computer lab.

For some reason, students think that they're supposed to love the entire process and that if they admit that it's hard to manage the process, the faculty will think they're not worthy somehow. Well, it's not true. When I tell them that they'll hate the last couple months of the process, that they'll become angry at me and resentful of my request for revisions, they relax. A little bit. But it's really not over until it's over.

I imagine that writing a dissertation is like having a child somewhat. Days of anticipation, fantasizing about how life will be when it is done and how you will enjoy the fruit of your labor for the rest of your life, how your life will be better somehow, and the things you will get to do. But before it is over, you have to work at it in ways that are painful.
It reminds me of what Paul said in Romans, that "all creation groans and waits for the redemption of our bodies." So did I, writing my dissertation. So do my students.

So I'm thinking about several stalwart souls today, in the throes of writing, analyzing, trying to conceptualize what they are doing, looking forward to the day when they will be finished. In the meantime, she is doing what she has to, just to survive. My student is one woman whom I will be happy to call my colleague. She's almost there.