Hurdles Cleared

For three years I have held the dubious academic designation of ABD - All But Dissertation - an assignation something like 50% of graduate students never surmount. Now, with only one more hurdle before TAMU officially recognizes me as PhD - successfully waddling nearly 37 weeks pregnant across the graduation stage - I find myself in another phase of ABD - All But Diploma.

Believe it or not, during high school I spent three years on the varsity track team (I even won MVP my senior year), bouncing between such events as the triple jump, long jump, all of the sprints (100, 200, 400 yards), and even the high jump (before you laugh too hard, I could clear more than my mere height). By the end of my first season, the coaches settled on rotating me through the high jump (keep on laughing!), a series of 400 yard races (anchoring the 800 medley and the 1600 relay; sometimes the open 400), and . . . the 300 yard hurdles.

Given my years of dance training and reputation as a quite decent jumper as a dancer, my track coaches determined that hurdles might suit me. As one might suspect, clearing hurdles requires some finesse and technique. Running up to them and jumping over rarely results in success. During practices I mastered the art of counting strides to the first hurdle and eyeballing the appropriate takeoff point to send my lead leg straight over and allowing my trail leg to follow through. Learning how to hurdle usually involves some crashing and burning. In addition to several skinned knees, I once managed to skid belly first on the track after catching the hurdle with my lead toe. My dance training did help me clear the hurdles, usually over-clearing, a habit that did not help my speed any as I battled my short stride. Luckily, track and field events do not award style points, so I found a degree of success as long as I completed the race and left all my efforts out on the track.

After I defended the dissertation way back in May, the wash of relief soon replaced itself with a frenzy over the bureaucratic hurdles necessary to clear before graduation. Silly me, believing that six years of research to write 266 pages with over 500 meticulously crafted footnotes and four appendices would prove enough to satisfy the TAMU graduation gods! I needed to apply for graduation (at which point they levy a charge for your diploma); order my cap and gown (of course, doctoral regalia costs more than all others - must be the velvet stripes); and, most importantly, clear my dissertation through the thesis office (for yet another fee). This feat requires copious paperwork and adherence to a series of strict deadlines, including copyright statements; approval documents from the dissertation committee - not only one from the defense, but a second confirming their approval of the dissertation; completion of surveys concerning one’s half a decade in graduate school; and the correct formatting of the dissertation according to a forty-page manual. In fairness, I understand that perhaps allowing the thousands of graduate students each year to turn in their projects in whatever form they so desired might end in disaster. Regardless, the process remains a soul-sucking exercise in hoop-jumping, er, hurdle-clearing, at a point by which it proves difficult to assemble the mental and physical wherewithal to complete these tasks. For instance, the act of securing committee signatures not once, but twice, may take days if not weeks, especially if one has a retired member, members actively pursuing research, or members generally busy teaching and administrating. Furthermore, the required formatting of the document leaves little room for creativity, though I suppose that is usually the first victim of bureaucracy, along with individual initiative.

What I found true of my high school track days holds true of completing the PhD.  Persistence pays. Did I need to be the most brilliant track athlete to win my team's MVP? Nope, but I showed up for and completed all of my events, compiling them into a tidy number of points and a not-too-shabby record by the end of the season. I have little sense now about the "score" of my work as a graduate student, but I do know that it is over, finished, done. As one of my fabulous dissertation committee members reminded me repeatedly: "Success is in the completion." So it was with track, and so it is with the PhD.

In two weeks, one may officially call me "Dr." Until then I wait, all hurdles cleared, everything "left on the track," as All But Diploma. 

XO,

JZog

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