Bailing out

About a week ago I made the momentous decision to stop pursuing my PhD.  Why, you ask, after all the work I've done?  Well, the real work is yet to come and I just don't feel like I can give 100% to my degree AND 100% to my family.  The long and the short of it is that my family comes first.  End of story.  It's not a complete wash though, I am able to get another MEd out of it.  So, I truly am overeducated and underpaid!  Two MEd's and an MS, not too shabby.  I'll live with the shame of quitting, no problem!

Narrowing things down

My task for the past two weeks has been to narrow down my topic.  This has me stalled.  Part of me feels like if I do something that's near and dear to my heart, my chairs will say it's not a good idea.  Guess I'll have to put it out there and see what happens.....

One down...

Well, it wasn't as great or as long as I wanted it to be but I've turned in my initial write up!!  I had it in my confused little head that I needed to write my entire lit review for this first submission.  It took me a few days to realize that this is a developmental process and no one is expecting me to have a completed lit review right now!  The plan is to do incremental work on this and submit it every one-two weeks....at least I hope my chair(s) think that's ok.  Onward and upward!

Inital write-up

Now, theoretically doing an initial lit review write-up doesn't sound too hard.  I mean you're just summarizing the massive plethora of articles that you've read thus far.  We'll, it take a lot more than you'd think!  I initially started this thinking that I would just summarize things.  Then I took a look at one of my colleagues' (who has earned her PhD) lit review for her actual dissertation.  Why just summarize when I have the beginnings of my own full lit review?!?  Unfortunately, this is going to take a bit longer so I won't be turning it in to my co-chairs today.  I'll have it ready on Monday!

New Year's resolution

I've kind of given up on resolutions.  I never follow through and they just seem pointless.  That being said, I have resolved to defend my proposal by the end of the Spring 2013 semester.  I really want to graduate in the 2014 commencement ceremony and the only way to do that is to bust my ass and get this done.  I've found the angle I'm going to take....perceptions of parents, teachers and administrators on the IEP process.  I may focus it even more and throw in Assistive Technology in IEP's.  Gotta wade through some literature first! 

Sigh

So in 2003 after finishing my MS in Information Systems, I was already working at UIC.  One of the perks of working at a university is free tuition for employees.  So...I thought hey, I should get my PhD.  Why I thought that is anybody's guess.  In Summer 2004 I began work on my PhD in Educational Psychology with a concentration in Measurement, Evaluation, Statistics, and Assessment (MESA).  I got through all of my coursework, but not before I gave birth to Jake.  Life's focus seemed to change drastically once he came into our world.  Between doctors and therapy appointments, there didn't seem to be much time left for reading and writing.  I took a year off from my studies after he was born just to get a handle on things.  Then, I resumed.  But, I was stuck.  For the life of me I couldn't stick with a dissertation topic for very long.  Nothing grabbed my interest and attention.  I tried a couple different approaches to no avail.  After several semesters of screwing around and racking up a few incompletes and defers I am at the make or break point of my educational career.