TL;DR: This post distills insights from undergoing my first doctoral class. I hope you find it helpful or comforting, but again, check the subheadings for information most relevant to you.
By this point in the adventure, you've acclimated to your new institutional systems; organized yourself for the blast of information coming soon, met your cohort and first professor, and, if all goes well, optimized the odds that you'll start strong. Way to go!
From here, there's no way for me to tell you what your first class WILL be like (that's nearly statistically impossible, as the odds are VERY slim) as one class experience from my lens of perspective will differ across several variables (such as different programs, life stages, experiences leading up to this point, socioeconomic differentials, the list goes on).
Instead of trying to convey what you will go through, I'll discuss my experience and pay forward the lessons I gathered along the way. Before jumping in, we need some background context (queueing the sparkly music that leads to an opening scene of a budding scholar attending her first doctoral class). My program of choice was a Doctorate in Business Administration, and the program employed an online course delivery system. Here's the complete course curriculum for the entire adventure playbook:
Year 1 Classes:
Doctoral Success Lab (You are here.)
A History of Applied Management Theory
Global Leadership and Ethics
Organizational Behavior and Social Responsibility
Global Perspectives in Human Resource Management
Research Methods – Qualitative
Year 2 Classes:
Research Methods – Quantitative
SPSS – Research Data Analysis
Applied Research
Analytics for Decision Making
Strategic Management in Global Organizations
Consulting Learning Seminar
Year 3 Classes:
Consulting Learning Practicum
Dissertation Seminar
Doctoral Written Comprehensive Exam
Directed Research (This repeats for up to 3 more terms, carrying into a 4th year)
Dissertation Oral Defense (Non-credit)
Classes are designed to be taken one at a time, run for eight weeks, and usually have a weekend separating the ending of one course from the beginning of the next. If you didn't take a semester off, the only breaks in the schedule happened during the winter holidays for about three weeks, or what one colleague called "three weeks off for good behavior." You may find a similar cadence in your new schedule, and if this is the case, I suggest you accept this new reality now and cherish the time.
One of the benefits of this program was the curriculum preparing us for the final challenge at a steadily increasing level of rigor. Akin to levels in a video game, the challenges and battles grew tougher as our skill sets advanced. Looking back on what seemed like a Level 1 tutorial round with an "I'm a very 'squishy' character" feel, I appreciate even more the growth that ensued from this journey.
The class had a series of assignments to execute:
An initial comprehensive assessment (the before picture of your journey, testing what understanding you currently possess)
Module content reviews and downloads
Eight discussion responses with required responses to colleagues and your professor (The host assignment of the 11:59 club)
Weekly synchronous collaboration sessions
One annotated bibliography
Project 1: One ten-page literature review
Project 2: One recorded presentation of Project 1 work
The journey began late one night in the first week of May. Attendance was earned by completing the first-week module; I learned this after receiving a call on the first day of term asking why the work was incomplete and had a minor panic episode. At this stage, I was looking for signs that I had made the right decision or not with the mindset to ignore the sunk costs if it didn't work out. Delightfully, the first professor was the head of the program and exuded care and concern for the success of his students. It was then I knew I had found the right place. (Thank you, Dr. Mancini!)
As is the case with most day-one classes, we, the members of cohort 17, took turns introducing ourselves and received a 'run-down' of what lay ahead. We discussed the first assignment, drafting an area of specialization statement. Looking at the projects and considering the caliber of what the cohort was here to do, I wondered if I could handle the workload alongside my other responsibilities and if I had what it took to reach the end. With every passing week, a flow and sense of timing set in regarding my personal time management, but it was tested with the first major project, the ten-page literature review.
Looking back on this assignment now, I chuckle. Ten pages is now a challenge as a max limit, but doable as a minimum. A lot of my stress came from a fervor to prove myself. In an oddly humorous turn of fate, I later learned this mindset is a pre-requisite condition for job burnout, one of the phenomenal foci in my dissertation. That's a post for another time, but it's amusing to notice life's subtle foreshadowing, amirite?
Writing my first literature review
The literature review resulted from weaving together priorly written annotated bibliographies of reviewed articles on a chosen topic, discussing the areas of agreement and highlighting areas of discord, and determining the research gaps that present from the limited research as avenues of future study. Looking back, this was a great first impression of conducting academic research, though, at the time, I had no idea how valuable it was.
Topic-wise, my literature focused on what is referred to as value-congruence or a match between a worker's personal values and that of their employing organization's espoused values. The final submission (v02, as a callback, no file is EVER final) was fifteen pages long with mere one-and-a-half pages of references, and the feelings of sitting for hours-untold working on it rushed to mind. It was stressful then, but the stress was not without reward. I took with me some pearls of wisdom (Ooooo, shiny); please enjoy.
Note: If you've ever looked back on your older work, felt the cringe, and can identify what would need to be changed to improve it, consider the recognition a sign of how much you have grown.
Lessons-
Academic writing is like basket-weaving- Seems outlandish? Hear me out. As I was writing, the act of bringing together information flooded my imagination with visuals of basket weaving. Look for areas of convergence. Where are findings similar or reinforcing one another across articles? Are common references found across multiple articles?
One point here aligns with another issue there, over and under and over again. You're bringing it all together in what should be a fluid piece, where the grand design is a cohesive series of objective, research-backed points that lead to the final position of a new study to fill a now apparent gap or to test an area lacking consensus.
Reading academic writing can be a lot of translating into simple language- This is still frustrating. While I understand that some scholars may possess an arsenal of impressive, mellifluous, and multi-syllabic words at the ready for such written occasion (if not a witty repartee, to be sure), using as many as possible while explaining dense research or theory is not great for those of us trying to learn it.
The KISS method ('Keep It Smartly Simple'; after all, there's no need to be mean) grew to become an indicator of expertise. If an author knows something well, they can and often would explain it simply. (Thank you out there to all that do.) For those more-robustly-written articles, I learned to expect to read them thoroughly at least two more times and to simplify them (i.e., break them down) before finding any valuable insights. This demand became time-consuming, so I created a cover sheet template to highlight the essential points (and, um, yeah...it was attached from then on to all my TPS reports).
My Article Review Cover Sheet
Finding information is more challenging than it initially seems- Caveat here, finding access to the relevant or most valuable information is more complicated than we've grown to expect for other non-research-related searches. No doubt it is far easier now than ever, but that still does not mean you'll have immediate access to every article without additional expense or a mandated waiting period, so plan accordingly.
To efficiently determine if an article is relevant, I offer you a recommendation from the first course, the Abstract, Results, Method (or ARM for short) review. It works as you may have guessed by reading the Abstract section to see what the article is about as the first "Is this article relevant and useful for my research?" check. Next, you read the Results section to see if they are relevant and either align with or refute other studies. Lastly, you read the Method section to determine if the researcher's approach is reliable, valid, and relevant to your research.
Treat an article's reference section like a shopping list- This nugget is related to the last point. When researching, you're going DEEP, which means that you need to read the articles from which the one or two foundational pieces are basing their positioning, which means we go another layer in and read what THEY have read. Are there any references to a single article across the ones you've already pulled?
This occurrence could indicate you have found a seminal article, meaning you must read the OG. Therein is the magic that makes the reference section so valuable for researchers. You're walking the path of prior academics while gaining incremental understanding with each layer of discovery. Down the rabbit hole, dear Alice.
Says who?- I find myself saying this to students more than ever now. Flashbacks of classes of professors telling me to take my 'two cents' out of the equation come to mind in these early days. Fortunately, I listened and learned quickly. The writing you're doing here is not persuasive from a subjective standpoint. You're not looking to prove your hunch; you're looking to find an answer based on whatever the results yield, even if the answer is a "fail to disprove." One of the great profs in this journey said it best "You have to be relentless in pursuing an answer, but dispassionate in the outcome." (Thank you, Dr. Kemp).
There you have it, five insights that shaped my success and all from the first class. The following post will attempt to cover the remaining events and pearls from the first year. Til' next time!