As I said in the previous entry in this series, I believe there were two moments where I came close to not completing the dissertation. The first occurred in Summer 2016 when the tedium of dissertation work stifled my enjoyment of writing. As I noted in Part 5, I eventually snapped out of that spell and got back to making steady progress. In October, I had to disrupt my momentum to polish dossier materials and send out job applications, but that brief gap in progress did not affect me too much. I kept sending material to my advisor, and everything continued as planned. A defense at the end of January looked likely.
Unfortunately, things did not stay that way for long. Outside of my philosophical life, two things happened that fall that had a significant impact on me. The first was the 2016 U.S. presidential election. I had, for the most part, tried to ignore the political developments in the U.S. over the summer and focus on my work, but the all-encompassing election coverage on social media and the vitriolic nature of the campaigns made the events difficult to ignore. When the results were finally obtained on November 8th, the outcome was not what I had hoped for, and many of my peers spent the remainder of the night (and a chunk of the morning) in the close proximity to hard liquor.
Earlier in the fall, I had attended a 3-hour Safe Zone training session. My main reason for attending was to gain some insight into how to make my classroom a more inclusive environment and one in which students could feel free to express themselves, but it ended up serving a more personal purpose. One of the conversations at that session marked the first time I publicly identified myself as bisexual. Although I had been wrestling with this aspect of my identity for a couple years, it was only toward the end of the 2016 summer that I had managed to understand and accept it.
I had tried to keep these matters in the background during the fall. Being transparent about this aspect of my identity was part of my long-term plan, but I had wanted to let it unfold on a relatively slow timetable and seep into public knowledge when graduate school was in the rearview mirror. The election aftermath made that timetable seem untenable. So many people I knew felt alone and vulnerable and feared that their progress toward equality would begin to reverse. Acting as if I had no personal stake in the these events felt like a violation of my integrity – a failure to stand by many of the values and commitments I held dear.
For a few days, I tried to carry on with business as usual, but doing so seemed impossible. It wasn’t business as usual, and it wouldn’t return to anything like that until I reached some kind of resolution. There seemed like only one way to do that, so I had the awkward but necessary conversations with my dissertation advisor, my parents, my friends – until I eventually said something about it on social media near end of November. While that announcement was met with some surprise from certain folks, it came with relatively little drama. Things weren’t back to business as usual at the end of the fall term, but I certainly felt better.
This bit of autobiography is not intended to be an anecdote about politics or being LGBT+. It exemplifies a broader truth about the graduate school experience. Because graduate school lasts so long for doctoral students, it is almost guaranteed that they will go through at least one significant personal crisis on the way to their degree. I have watched friends battle through much greater hardships than anything I endured: cancer diagnoses, alcoholism, depression, financial peril, divorce, unexpected family deaths, and a host of other life-shattering circumstances. Sad as it is to see, not everyone manages to overcome their ordeals and still get the PhD in the end.
From what I have witnessed and experienced myself, I can offer two recommendations. First, when in the midst of a personal crisis, the best strategy is usually to resolve the crisis as soon as possible (assuming it can be done), even when doing so comes at a short-term cost to one’s philosophical work. In other words, don’t just put your head down and try to ignore the problem.
It’s good to care about one’s work and important to prioritize it, but there are times when the gravity of other things must be properly acknowledged. In the long run, I think trying to carry on with philosophy without addressing high-stakes personal matters will usually be counterproductive. Doing philosophy well requires investing large amounts of time and mental energy. It’s much harder to make these investments when something outside philosophy is constantly occupying your attention, and trying to do so can lead to lowered productivity, lower quality work, and a reduced enjoyment of your work.
Second, when choosing a dissertation advisor, consider how much the person will support you when things aren't going well. If you need to, consult other graduate students who have studied under this person, and get some insight from their experiences. I will always be grateful that my advisor did not pressure me to produce any work during November and December, given what else was going on in my life. He also never lost the belief that I would finish the dissertation and continued to provide fast turnarounds on drafts when I was able to resume my work. That kind of support makes a world of difference.
Of course, at this point, you might be wondering how it all came to an end. After the usual deluge of end-of-semester grading, a few Skype interviews, winter break, and a trip to the APA Eastern, it was the second week of January, and I had made about 8 pages of progress since the election. There were still massive holes in the manuscript and several chapters in need of revision. I defended the dissertation on March 30th, so what happened in the 12 weeks beforehand? How did it finally get done? Those details await in Part 7.
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