Jonathan Warren, who recently finished his Ph.D. in the History of Christianity at Vanderbilt University, reflects upon what he learned from writing his dissertation. Thank-you Jonathan! [Read more…] about Five Things I’ve Learned from Writing a Dissertation Series
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Five Things I’ve Learned from Writing a Dissertation, Part 3
Jonathan Warren shares the last in a three part series. Explore Part 1 here and Part 2 here.Â
As I wrap up this series, two more things I learned from my dissertation come to mind:
4) You need to strike the proper balance between research and writing.
One of my besetting issues during the entirety of my Ph.D. program was the sense that I always needed to know more about the topic than I did before I could write about it. My tendency was to consume more and more information, compile more and more detailed notes, and then try to spit it all out on the page. I did this every semester during my coursework, and I often had to take incompletes because of it. [Read more…] about Five Things I’ve Learned from Writing a Dissertation, Part 3
Five Things I’ve Learned from Writing a Dissertation, Part 2
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Last time I explored how important it is to have a supportive community while writing. Here I move on to lessons 2 and 3 from my dissertation process:
2) Be realistic about how much time good writing takes.
I mentioned before that I’m an ENFP and find it extremely hard to focus. I’m also very social and tend to get depressed if I spend too long in the library researching and writing. One of the initial challenges for me in making progress on the dissertation was developing what historian Heiko Oberman calls the “sitting muscles†necessary for doing good scholarship. Everyone’s a little different on this score, but over time I’ve found that I really can’t make any good progress in writing without at least three hours of uninterrupted time to work. Part of it has to do with the rhythm of writing. I spend the first hour distracted by other projects, life logistics, and so on. The second hour I finally get down to business and lose myself in the writing process. The third hour I’m wrapping up, completing footnotes, tying up loose ends in the writing and jotting down thoughts that I need to follow up on in the next session. [Read more…] about Five Things I’ve Learned from Writing a Dissertation, Part 2
Five Things I’ve Learned from Writing a Dissertation, Part 1
Over the past six years, I’ve been enrolled in a Ph.D. program in the Graduate Department of Religion at Vanderbilt University, studying church history. For the past three years, I’ve been trying to write a dissertation, which is more or less like trying to write a book–but for three or four very persnickety readers.
More than once during this process I’ve questioned whether I would be able to finish. I never struggled with “imposter syndrome†during coursework or comprehensive exams, but during the dissertation phase there’s been plenty of self-doubt. Mark Noll graduated from the GDR at Vanderbilt in three years – so why was writing such a challenge for me? Did that mean I didn’t have what it takes? Also, I’m an ENFP on the Myers-Briggs inventory, which means I’m easily distracted. Seventeenth century Puritanism was interesting for a couple of months – couldn’t I move on to something else now? I felt like the dissertation would never end and that I couldn’t possibly keep myself interested in it.
This fall, I finally finished the dissertation. So now seems like a great moment to step back and reflect. Over the next few posts, I’ll share what I’ve learned during the process of writing:
1) You need cheerleaders, even if you don’t struggle generally with self-confidence.
I suppose it is the case that there are some people who don’t need any encouragement, whose massive erudition, work ethic, and overweening self-possession can take them right through the dissertation without any encouragement whatsoever. My experience, however, is that even people who are generally quite confident in their abilities get pretty discouraged about dissertation writing, especially if the process moves slowly. That’s certainly been the case for me. If you can hammer out a draft in six months, then more power to you – but it’s taken me considerably longer than that. I needed validation that it was worth my while to continue writing even if I had nothing to say or couldn’t find the focus to write something meaningful for days or weeks.
I have been fortunate to have a supervisor and a second reader that are not only colleagues but friends. Many Ph.D. students are not in this position. Their relationships with supervisors are frosty or even adversarial. Especially if you find yourself in this situation, but in any event, you need a community of folks to encourage you. Get plugged in with a local church and establish a close network of friends there. Be honest with them about how hard the dissertation process is. Consider putting together a prayer and confession team at your church that can walk through peaks and valleys with you.
It’s also important to practice the discipline of celebration. Don’t turn something in without marking that progress with your community and doing something fun to break up the grind of daily writing.
Image by jarmoluk at Pixabay.com
Gradschool for God’s Global Mission: S. Joshua Swamidass
This is the third post in an Urbana12 series by J. Nathan Matias (@natematias), Research Assistant, MIT Media Lab Center for Civic Media. This post in original form can be found here. Thank-you Nathan! Great to have you contributing material to the ESN Blog. Your work is much appreciated. ~ Thomas B. Grosh IV, Associate Director of ESN.
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This weekend, I’m at Urbana, a gathering of Christian students interested in the work of the church worldwide. Over the next few days, I will be blogging two kinds of sessions. Sessions like this morning’s gathering [12/29/2012] are intended to inspire and challenge Christian students to consider international service. This afternoon, I’ll be blogging more focused seminars, where smaller groups discuss specific issues.
Today, I also blogged seminars on the theology of immigration and this post on the place of graduate students in the global church.
Why would a student who cares about God’s mission even consider applying to gradschool? Speaking with us is S. Joshua Swamidass, an Assistant Professor in the Medical School at Washington University in St Louis.
Joshua starts by polling the room. A third of the room is in gradschool, half are applying to gradschool, and many in the audience aren’t sure if gradschool is right for them. A handful of people are planning to go to gradschool for ministry training, but most are planning to go to gradschool at nonreligious institutions. The room has an equal split between sciences and non-sciences.
What does the calling of a Christian look like? In 1999, when Joshua was a senior in college, he attended a student missions conference like Urbana. They presented a model of life calling which caused a lot of pain in his life, even though it seemed reasonable at the time. Their model shared three steps.
- The first was to trust in Jesus for salvation. Joshua agrees that it’s an incredibly important step.
- Next, they urged students to commit to “go wherever and do whatever God wants.” This is also important– much more important than the details. Rather than beg God what he wants us to do, we should start with a willingness to follow God wherever he leads us — whether it’s China, Africa, or California. He might lead us to be poor, be in politics, or be rich. This is a great vision. If we can trust God with our salvation, we can trust him with anything.
- The final part of the model he heard in 1999 is terrible advice, says Joshua. He was told that students who care about the mission of Christ should quite naturally move into “full-time,” vocational ministry, at least for a year or longer.
“I didn’t sign up for part-time ministry,” says Joshua. At conferences, organisations try to “raise up people” to get them to work on specific international projects. Instead of helping people find a way of life, organisations try to funnel students into very specific, short-term projects.
Back in 1999, Joshua realised that God wasn’t leading him to get his paycheck from a church, but instead earn his own living. He argues that only a minority of people should be going into vocational ministry. After all, it takes maybe 50 people to fund one full-time religious worker.
As an undergrad, when Christians looked at Joshua, they only saw half of him. They noticed that he was speaking at local student groups, writing about spiritual topics, writing op eds in the local newspaper. His Christian friends saw that he was a “missional student” who loved universities and pushed him to work as official campus staff within a Christian organisation. They didn’t understand the other half of his life: he was drawn to medicine and did well in his classes. He loved computer programming and math. Joshua liked working in a scientific research group, loved the university world, and loved teaching.
Joshua saw himself as a missional student that would be involved in campus ministry eventually, but he was also a science student who was working to be a science professor.
Joshua suggests and encourages an alternative way to think about calling, a parallel model which accounts for the way our career develops over time.