Dear Dr. Noelle: Musical Chair?

By Dr. Noelle Sterne

Q: It’s time for me to find a dissertation chair. I’m panicked. How?

—Chairless

A: You’re right to have at least a little trepidation. Here’s what a new “doctor” said in a study of how the choice and behavior of chairs affect doctoral students’ satisfactions:

It is impossible to overestimate the significance of the student-advisor relationship. . . . This is both a personal and professional relationship that rivals marriage and parenthood in its complexity, variety and ramifications for the rest of one’s life. (Zhao et al., 2007, p. 263)

That student echoes what many doctoral candidates learn, with ease or agony, during their dissertation years. Your relationship with your chair (sometimes called advisor or supervisor) is absolutely the most important in your entire doctoral trek. In my many years of coaching and advising doctoral candidates, I have seen too often how the “wrong” chair not only delays dissertation completion and graduation but creates much frustration.

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Dear Dr. Noelle: Whirling in the Limbo of Creativity

By Dr. Noelle Sterne,

Q: Whenever I start writing, all kinds of ideas start swirling around. How do I corral them?

— Creatively Dizzy

A: I’ve experienced the same, often. Whether I’ve scribbled a handful of notes in a frenzy of inspiration or actually made an outline, once I start to write that same itchy, unsteady, slightly nauseous feeling pervades. Not exactly illness or indigestion, it’s more of a nervous disquiet I can only describe as “creative limbo.” Doesn’t matter how often I’ve felt it or how many pieces I’ve started and completed. It rears up, and the ideas threaten to overtake me.

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Dear Dr. Noelle: Vanquish That Self-Imposed Guilt

By Dr. Noelle Sterne

Q: What do you do if you missed a deadline you created for yourself? How do you get through the feelings of guilt and set another deadline in a way that you can hold yourself to it?

              — M. Culpa

A: I empathize with you! It’s hard to miss your self-imposed deadline. As a fellow deadline-misser, I’ve arrived at several methods that make myself easier to live with.

1. Face it. 

What did you decide to do instead? Maybe play time was irresistible when your kid begged you to build a Lego city together. Maybe you didn’t need to see the last 90-minute episode of “Greatest Scholarly Acknowledgments.” Whatever choice you made, face it. You made it. 

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Dear Dr. Noelle: Overworking and Underwriting

By Dr. Noelle Sterne

Q: I work full-time and more! How can I write my dissertation?

 — Overworking and Underwriting

A: Most doctoral candidates work full-time. And have families and responsibilities. If you’re at the dissertation stage, finding time for writing is especially hard. Maybe a few fortunate students can quit work and devote themselves completely to the dissertation. But if you cannot quit, there are still ways to make decent time for it. Other than speaking harshly to yourself to devote Saturday to the dissertation instead of the game, one way that many candidates have found effective is to meet with your employer or supervisor.

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Dear Dr. Noelle: Those Horrible Holiday Questions

By Dr. Noelle Sterne

Q: I’m dreading the holiday dinner table and all those questions about my dissertation. How to handle them?

      — Lost My Appetite

A: Holidays can be welcome respites from our daily routines and the seemingly relentless pressures to produce. But, like Lost Appetite, when we’re at holiday gatherings and in the throes of our dissertations, we also risk often inevitable and embarrassing questions from well-meaning relatives and friends. With all the gorging, you can be sure that at least one person will ask those questions that make you squirm, right up there with the personal in-your-face ones like “How come you’re still single?” or “When are you going to have kids?”

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Dear Dr. Noelle: Are School and Spirituality Mismatched?

By Dr. Noelle Sterne

Q: I follow a spiritual practice and was advised to pray about my dissertation. Is this wrong?
                 — Repentant? 

A: No, it’s not wrong or blasphemous, nor do you have to confess.

More students than we imagine use their spiritual practices for school. Yes, they seem contradictory. School requires your intellect; spirituality requires surrendering your intellect. School subsists on logic and realism; spirituality survives on faith.

I used to hold fiercely to these boundaries. Spirituality and school, I thought, were at opposite ends of the heavens, or at least unequivocally separate.

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