PhDs 2010 - Still Believing and Achieving! - Page 4

[smokeylo]

I decided to postpone comps until Spring. I am just not able to work enough right now, there was no way I'd be ready in September. So... sigh! Reality bites but being realistic is necessary.

[marinak1977]

bumpity bump

How is everyone doing? It's been quiet out here.
I'll start.
I finally have my degree showing up in the transcripts. Yay! Additionally my company gave me an official employment offer with an option to leave my dissertation lab gradually after finishing up the last commitments. So I'm now down to half time as a postdoc in my lab and really getting into my new job. It's still weird to say my title though. It sounds too big and important after being an insignificant grad student for so long.

[Carita]

very cool marika - so what are you doing now?

i am trying to get my advisor back some corrections and i am already 2 weeks overdue on!! eek. but the good news is I know exactly some of the issues he was trying to hint at, so at least i know what i'm supposed to do, even if i'm not always doing it. in the meantime i am trying to move and line things up for my new job. i am really excited to teach again and have already picked out a new textbook.

[Dar]

Just subbing and saying hi again... I just finished my second year in a doctoral program in cultural anthropology. I'll get an M.A. on my way - I actually defended my second year paper (basically a master's thesis) in February, but because I was part of an exchange in Paris this spring I didn't get to take the last two classes I needed... so I'll take them in the fall and then get that degree under my belt.

I'm currently in Tunisia doing some preliminary research and fieldwork... I love this country, and people have been so kind to me... but it's also SO hot, our tiny apartment has no air conditioning (and of course neither does the very crowded public transportation I use) and I haven't been in the US since February and I'm really missing it right now. So, I'm pushing myself to get as much done here as I can but I'm also counting down the days (12 )

[fireHC11]

I think I've just finished my along-the-way thesis. Just gotta make sure the margins are within spec and pick up some signatures from absentee committee members. Yay!!!

[marinak1977]

fireHC11 congrats! Finishing the thesis was really tough for me. It's nice to be done!

Carita - I ended up giving up academic track (for my field that meant a postdoc and then tenure track position at an RO1 supported university. DH and I really didn't want to leave Seattle so academia really wasn't an option. So, completely accidentally I landed a job with a brand new stratup company and I get to lead their science R&D. My actual title is chief science officer of course it is a company of 11 with the science department of 3. Nonetheless it's a super exciting job so I'm hoping we do well and the company sticks around for a while.

[Carita]

still very cool. here's to hoping that your start up stays up! too bad your field requires a R1 U - I would expect not many fields like that except ones that require $$ research equipment. I am lucky that I don't have to worry much about that, so I can teach anywhere. Yes I had to be an hr away from family, but I would have had to be at least that ANY job paying more than 35K.

[smokeylo]

Childcare fiasco after childcare fiasco pretty much made July useless for me and now I feel like hiding from my adviser . I am comping in February but am so worried that I don't have enough time to study. I have part-time childcare for my kids most mornings but I will teach 2x/week. We can't afford, nor do I want to do, full time care for them. It's stressing me out to think that I will just have to be patient and that things will be easier as my baby (6 months) gets older and easier for others to care for. I really, really want to comp in the spring!!

[Magistra]

I've almost finished my certification for public school teaching and may even have a job teaching in middle school; I should find out in the next day or two, though I'm pretty sure everything is just pro forma right now. We're trying to figure out childcare, which is a little nerve-wracking on such short notice. We're not completely desperate since my partner works from home, her mother can come up at least a couple days a week, and we have some leads on part-time care in our house. There was a part of me that had wanted to juggle care between the two of us (and MIL) for at least 18 months, but we could really use the money and the sooner I get into the system, the sooner I can work on creating the program I want to teach.

Work on my comps has stalled out with this, two classes for my certification, and summer childcare duties. I'm not nearly as interested in that work as I should be and am trying to find the motivation.

[Tattooed Hand]

Hello all! I am a PhD student in history who got pregnant about 6 months too soon. I managed to draft all the chapters of my dissertation but didn't get to revise or write the intro. Plus I had to teach all year and had DD over winter break (first day of classes was exactly 6 weeks postpartum).

DD does not sleep more than 2-3 hour stretches at night, rarely sleeps more than 8-9 hours a night total and is very high needs. I recently got some part time childcare, which is of somewhat limited use because she won't take a bottle and no one else can get her to sleep. Plus, she has no sleep schedule.

I was suppose to get lots done but she has been teething and learning to crawl and many nights wakes every 1-2 hours. How am I suppose to write a dissertation? The administration at my university is totally unsympathetic and if I don't finish by January, I won't be allowed to register again because I had a completion grant the year I got pregnant.

How do you do it? I feel like everyone around me either formula feeds their babies, puts them in full time daycare and/or does CIO sleep training. I don't want to do any of those things. But I also am so stressed out about finishing! I don't want to not get my degree but most days my brain doesn't work because I am so tired.

[fireHC11]

How frustrating! Can you take a leave of absence while you finish up? Usually, a leave of absence doesn't count towards the semesters (or quarters) you've accumulated. How about a dissertation sabbatical? Some schools have this option. It may help to talk to someone else in administration (someone with kids). Finally, you could call your grant provider, explain the situation, and ask how to get an extension.

Part-timing the childcare but full-timing the schooling it here too.

Hope it looks up for you!

[smokeylo]

Originally Posted by Tattooed Hand

Hello all! I am a PhD student in history who got pregnant about 6 months too soon...

How do you do it? I feel like everyone around me either formula feeds their babies, puts them in full time daycare and/or does CIO sleep training. I don't want to do any of those things. But I also am so stressed out about finishing! I don't want to not get my degree but most days my brain doesn't work because I am so tired.

I totally feel you on all of this. I was supposed to get pregnant this spring and have my 2nd baby after comping in November. Instead I got pregnant LAST SUMMER and had a 2nd in the middle of coursework. Now I am REALLY struggling to study for comps, since my youngest still nurses and does not take a bottle. My oldest (2 yrs now) was also a very high needs baby.

Suggestions:
- some childcare is better than none, and you might be surprised how your daughter starts to like it after awhile. if she's anything like my oldest (sounds like she is -- same issues with sleep!) around 9/10 months she will start to enjoy other people instead of hating them . (Not sure how old your kiddo is.) If your kid is older, than it might take a little bit of pushing but I bet she will (A) take more solids while you are gone and (B) start to have fun if you put her in a small group situation with other kids. Last summer when my oldest was 16 mo, I finally put her in a part-time, in-home place. I was totally terrified but she ended up LOVING it. And she never quit nursing. I felt comfortable having mornings to work, but still being with her in the afternoon. At that age she dropped her morning nap.

- Start strategizing solutions to sleep. I HIGHLY suggest Elizabeth Pantley's books. If your kiddo is under 1, get the regular No Cry Sleep Solution -- if older, get the one designed for toddlers. Do you have an involved partner? It may be time to get his/her help with bedtime. You also need to impose a sleep schedule if one hasn't naturally emerged. I say this as the mother of a very sleep--troubled child who, like yours, woke frequently at night and didn't have a nap schedule. Creating one FOR her, including an earlier bedtime with a routine that ended with my partner putting her to bed, TRANSFORMED MY LIFE. She didn't sleep through the night until 28 months, but she DID take better, longer, regularly timed naps.

Like you, I will be freaking about having time to work this fall. I have my older daughter in a great daycare in the mornings, and my littlest (6 months) will stay with a sitter or in a childcare co-op for a few hours in the morning too. I hope that between that and my partner helping in the evenings/on weekends, and trying to do some kid swapping with friends, that I can cobble together time to work. And I keep reminding myself that things DO change -- a baby at 9 months is different than 6 months, and a baby older than a year is capable of a lot more independence.GOOD LUCK!!

[smokeylo]

OK, looking at your sig I see your baby is only a little older than my baby! So, it may take a little time since babies this young still rely on nursing so much. But I send solids for my baby to eat when I'm away. It's not perfect, and I keep trying to get her to like a soft-spout sippy, but it does mean I can be away for about 2-2.5 hours pretty safely. The more she gets to know her sitter, the less she cries. My oldest, high needs kid, takes about 5 times to like a place when it's new. A LOT will change in the next few months and your daughter will become MUCH more capable of independent play. Things may look very different even in October from now.

We are in the same situation, I feel for ya!

[Carita]

Lauren has great advice. BTDT! In fact trying to finish my last diss chapter up right now and actually loking forward to FT daycare starting in 2 weeks, which is so depressing for me as an AP mom, but I can't let myself dwell on it too much becaues then I'll never finish my dissertation. You just do what you gotta do. I try very hard to keep it M-F 8-5, then be all about the kids on my off time and be the best AP parent I can be the other 123 hrs of the week.

[EVC]

DD does not sleep more than 2-3 hour stretches at night, rarely sleeps more than 8-9 hours a night total and is very high needs. I recently got some part time childcare, which is of somewhat limited use because she won't take a bottle and no one else can get her to sleep. Plus, she has no sleep schedule.

You have my sympathy. Dd was about 2 months old when my PhD program began, which means I was in the full courseload phase. That first semester was total HELL. No other way to describe it. Dd was an extremely high needs little girl. I tried to juggle my schedule around and coordinate with dh and somehow (still not sure how) we all survived those first few months. I started in spring semester, so after that I had summer off with her. The following fall (when dd was about 10 months old), we started daycare. Dd did NOT do well (in part because she was a total momma's girl and didn't like to be sepatated from me even for short periods of time, in part because our daycare provided turned out to be less than ideal, to out it mildly).

Anyway, one thing I can say is that dd was breastfed until around her third birthday and has NEVER CIO'ed.

And then things got easier. Dd translated her high needs personality into an extremely high energy, social, outgoing personality and, after she turned from an infant to a toddler, decided that she absolutely LOVED going to daycare because there were so much more stimulation in that setting than there is sitting at home with just me

I don't know, it really sucked in the beginning. To the point where MANY times I seriously considered quitting. Sometimes it just didn't seem worth it. The ONLY thing that stopped me was that the alternative to going to school full time was working fulltime, which seemed like an even less attractive option to me.

[fireHC11]

Child care you trust is huge. We found a gal on craigslist that comes and takes my son (18 mo) for long walks, to parks, to the library, and generally keeps him super stimulated. Until he was about 14 months old, we would only be separated for 3 hours or less, so I could come back and nurse him. Now at 18 months, we can go 5 to 6 hours. He hasn't been into solid food until now, which certainly opens up a number of options for us. I learned to power-work in 3-hour chunks.

Having supportive faculty is just as huge. I've already said you should talk to someone higher up the chain... but if that doesn't work, maybe you could get your advisor on board. A well-placed phone call from a faculty member may help get the extension, funding, sabbatical, or leave that you need to finish up your work and get out with a new title.

[EVC]

Question for dissertating folks: do you use any kind of program like EndNote or RefWorks? If so, have you found it helpful?

[fireHC11]

I have a friend that swears by an online tool --- I think it's CiteULike. Me? I still put everything into my BibTeX in plain text.

[Carita]

i use jabref to manage my bibtex entries

[fireHC11]

Wikipedia has a nice article comparing reference managers.