Ninth doctoral commandment: ask for help
by Constance Davis | April 20, 2010
The dissertation is not going to be done in a day. You might be able to get it done within a year, but it is more likely that it will take two or three years. And it might take longer.
However, life is not going to wait for you as you are moving through your dissertation. You are going to have to deal with all that life hands you along the way, and sometimes you might find yourself struggling not to be overwhelmed by life events and still work on your dissertation.
First of all, learners should remember that they may ask to step away from the dissertation process for awhile. Talk to your advisor about taking a quarter of inactivity. Sometimes that one quarter allows learners to regain a little balance or to deal with an issue that has consumed an enormous amount of time and energy. If the dissertation is the proverbial straw, maybe it is time to consider a short break.
Second, sometimes your stressors and challenges become so great that you just need to talk to someone else. Please speak with your advisor and ask your advisor to connect you with a service that Capella provides for its learners. I have certainly provided this information to some of my own advisees. I assure my advisees that the only way I will know if they use this service is if the advisees themselves share that with me.
We may not be able to do much about some of the pressures we face, but we might be able to do something about how we handle them. Please ask for help.