Journey to a PhD – The Renegade Coder

It's autumn 2024, and I can finally say I am done with school at the ripe age of 30. Certainly, I wanted to be done sooner, but I suppose you can't rush these things. All-in-all, I just wanted to take a moment to celebrate the accomplishment. Recapping the Long Journey At the time of writing, this article will be the 54th in a series of articles on my journey to a PhD. There were several times during that journey where I worried that I'd never actually see the end of this series, so I wanted to take a moment to recap some of the highlights. As you might know, I started my PhD in August 2018, but the journey itself started much earlier than that. In fact, the first article in this series was published in May 2018, where I talked about things like applications and test scores. These days, it almost seems silly that I was ever worrying about those things, but they marked the beginning of my journey. When I ended up at OSU (i.e., Academic Year 2018/2019), I started in a computer science PhD program. As many of you know, that particular arc ended after I failed my qualifying exam a year into the program. In my second year (i.e., Academic Year 2019/2020), I did a bit of soul searching and ending applying to a PhD program in engineering education. Ultimately, I was accepted and spent the second half of that year finding my advisor. By the third year (i.e., Academic Year 2020/2021), I began my PhD program in engineering education while wrapping up my master's degree in computer science and engineering. The end of 2020 marked a somewhat muted achievement of the master's degree during the COVID lockdowns. It also marked my first time doing research, where I was interviewing faculty, staff, and administrators about their beliefs. By the start of my fourth year (i.e., Academic Year 2021/2022), I successfully passed my qualifying exam. My fourth year also marked the end of taking classes. Ultimately, I took my last three classes in Spring 2022. By my fifth year (i.e., Academic Year 2022/2023), I drafted my candidacy proposal and successfully defended it. At that point, I became a doctoral candidate and began conducting my study. Of course, it wasn't exactly smooth sailing, as my mom passed during my first attempt at data collection. It took until Summer 2023 before I was able to complete my study. During my sixth year (i.e., Academic Year 2023/2024), I performed data analysis, a few more interviews, and even began writing my dissertation. The writing portion took me some time. In fact, I started writing seriously on August 8th, 2023. One of the earliest sections was my methods, and then I worked outward from there. Based on a quick skim of old documents, my findings were next. Then, I wrote my literature review and rounded things out in the introduction and conclusion. Technically, I am in my seventh year (i.e., Academic Year 2024/2025). This is, of course, not atypical for PhDs, but it still feels like a very long time. Regardless, I defended my dissertation earlier this semester on November 4th, 2024. Then, I made some edits to the dissertation and submitted in the last week or so. Now, I am just waiting for graduation on December 15th, 2024. What Did It Take to Earn a PhD? At this point, you might be wondering what is involved in a PhD. To illustrate this, I'm going to share a few things like my course history since 2018 as well as the three key milestones. To start, here's essentially my transcript: Autumn 2018 Music 7204.4 [2 credits]: University Band CSE 6341 [3 credits]: Foundations of Programming Languages CSE 6331 [3 credits]: Algorithms CSE 5542 [3 credits]: Real-time Rendering Spring 2019 CSE 6559 [2 credits]: Advanced Studies in Computer Graphics CSE 5544 [3 credits]: Introduction to Data Visualization CSE 6431 [3 credits]: Advanced Operating Systems CSE 5539 [2 credits]: Intermediate Studies in Artificial Intelligence Summer 2019 CSE 8998 [4 credits]: PhD Research CSE Autumn 2019 CSE 6559 [3 credits]: Advanced Studies in Computer Graphics CSE 5521 [2 credits]: Survey of Artificial Intelligence ENGREDU 7189.01 [2 credits]: Teaching Preparation and Support ENGREDU 7900 [3 credits]: Professional Development Spring 2020 CSE 5522 [3 credits]: Survey of Artificial Intelligence II ENGREDU 7780 [3 credits]: Research Design ENGREDU 7189.02 [1 credit]: Professional Development in College Teaching CSE 6998 [3 credits]: Master's Research in CSE Summer 2020 ENGREDU 8999 [4 credits]: Dissertation Hours Autumn 2020 CSE 6998 [3 credits]: Master's Research in CSE ENGREDU 7881 [1 credit]: Seminar ENGREDU 6100 [3 credits]: Foundations of Engineering Education ENGREDU 6200 [3 credits]: Learning, Pedagogy, and Assessment ENGREDU 8999 [2 credits]: Dissertation Hours Spring 2021 ENGREDU 8999 [3 credits]: Dissertation Hours ESCE 5271 [3 credits]: Wellness ENGREDU 7881 [1 credits]: Seminar ENGREDU 6194 [3 credits]: Group Studies (Mixed Methods) Summer 2021 ENGREDU 8999 [4 credits]: Dissertation Hours Autumn 2021 ESEPSY 7404 [3 credits]: College Teaching ENGREDU 8999 [3 credits]: Dissertation Hours FABENG 7220 [2 credits]: College Teaching in Engineering Spring 2022 ANTHROP 5650 [3 credits]: Research Design and Ethnographic Methods ENGREDU 8999 [3 hours]: Dissertation Hours EDUTL 8015 [4 credits]: Diversity and Equity in Education EDUTL 6641 [4 credits]: Introduction to Statistics In addition, there are three major milestones to a PhD: qualifying, candidacy, and final examination (a.k.a. defense). The qualifying process differs for every major, department, and university. That said, I've done it twice. In computer science, it was a sequence of written exams based on courses I had previously taken. In engineering education, it was a sequence of essays also based on courses I had previously taken. In the former case, the qualifying exam took place over three sessions for a couple of hours each. In the latter case, the essays were to be completed in a two week period. Again, the candidacy process differs everywhere, but I've only completed it once in engineering education. That process involved drafting a research proposal, sharing it with my committee, and receiving a sequence of questions to be answered in essay format over the course of a month. The process concludes with an oral defense of the research design. At the very end of the PhD process is the dissertation defense, which involves sharing the document with your committee and defending it publicly. Ultimately, the process of earning a PhD involves taking a variety of courses and completing three major examinations. Of course, it also involves paying for your degree by teaching or conducting research, but that's perhaps a topic for another day. The Series Isn't Over There are a couple of things I would love to write up before I wrap up my series. First, I'd like to do a reflection on the journey. I am not exactly sure what form that will take, but I'm imagining it as a "10 things I wish I knew" type of article. Second, I'd like to share information about my research in more layman's terms. I think that would be fun! With that said, I'm going to call this one for today. I'll be traveling this upcoming week for the holidays, so I ought to put together another article this evening. Perhaps I'll put together the reflection piece as well, so you keep your eyes peeled for that. Otherwise, I hope you enjoyed this. As always, there is plenty more where that came from: I Am a PhD Candidate! Making Drastic Changes in My PhD Journey All But Dissertation: The Light at the End of the Tunnel Feel free to head over to my list of ways to grow the site as well to show your support. If not, take care!