COLLOQUY

THE QUESTION

RESPONSES

BACKGROUND

I tried three different times to discretely ask questions and discover how to get out of the situation and get another advisor. No one could tell me. When I went, tearfully, to the associate dean to ask for a time extension on the dissertation, my story came out. Turns out that the associate dean was the person responsible for approving diss committees, and, as this person pointed out to me, mine obviously wasn't working. S/he helped me change my situation, and I successfully finished my dissertation this year. (I suspect that upon hearing my story the associate dean also saw a potential lawsuit in the institution's future, which was another reason to facilitate my opportunity to complete my degree.) A large university press was waiting for me to finish the dissertation so that they could see the manuscript. It looks like there's a good chance they will publish it. The editor is asking me how long it will take me to make the edits once it's back from the readers. -- This is not the kind of thing that happens to an academic failure, as my graduate school experience led me to think of myself.

I went to graduate school to feed my mind and to gain a career, as a bonus. I was willing to take on significant debt in order to do so. But when my relationship with my advisor turned sour, my sense of myself as a scholar and as a worthwhile human being was severely damaged. And I wound up with far, far more debt than I was planning to have.

It's only in the last six months that I have begun to feel like a "person" again, but until I can get an appropriate job (i.e., in my field), earn a living wage, and be able to pay my monthly bills, it's not over yet. As the weeks pass since my successful defense, and as I slowly accumulate more evidence that I am indeed a worthwhile scholar, I find that I get angrier and angrier at what happened before. Your article on Jason Altom's suicide struck a nerve. My sincerest condolences to his family.

-- Anonymous, Ph.D. (posted 10/22, 11:09 a.m., E.D.T.)

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