Well, it's taken me a while to set up my own blog. Since I always seem
to have extra words, I might as well put them here.
Since becoming a coach for graduate students and professors, I have been
shocked to find out how much I love working with English/Comp
Lit/Religion/Humanities types. I was used to hanging around with
science types -- my father having been a physics professor, my husband a
doctor/doctor (Ph.D./M.D.) and psychology being a science, according to
some.
But the humanities people are so eloquent and deep. Whenever I get off
the phone from my humanities dissertation group, I feel like I've been
reading poetry. I know one of them is reading this now and snickering.
I thought I knew what the definition of ABD was. It was exactly the same as defined here in Carnegie Mellon's University Doctoral Candidate Policies for All But Dissertation (ABD) : After the completion of all formal degree requirements other than the completion of and approval of the doctoral dissertation and the public final examination, doctoral candidates shall be regarded as All But Dissertation(ABD). I have, though, occasionally run into the term ABD being used as a somewhat disparaging designation for one who fulfills the formal degree requirements of the Ph.D. but never finishes the dissertation, and then quits the program. Most recently, I saw it in What They Didn' t Teach You in Graduate School: 199 Helpful Hints for Success in Your Academic Career , by Paul Gray and David E. Drew. Number 9 of their helpful hints is one that I strongly agree with: "Remember that a Ph.D. is primarily an indication of survivorship." They go on to say, "You stuck wi
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