Trust Your Instincts
This weekend marks the end of another semester of my doctoral program and the completion of all coursework. I have spent the past 2.5 years working nonstop to finish 57 credit hours in the program early. I am grateful for the opportunity to work so hard toward my goal of earning my doctoral degree. A couple of semesters were difficult and left me with no time to focus on anything other than my studies.
But I am grateful because I am now “matriculating” while I wrap up writing my dissertation. The latter is governed by the program and chairperson’s timeline, not my own effort. So slow and steady progress it is: submitting new work in chunks, waiting two weeks for feedback, and turning in the next submission. I am grateful my instincts pushed me to go hard and heavy, completing a 3.5-year program in 2.5 years.
During the breaks and interims between submissions, I have been working on creative writing and reworking my stoic journal work from the previous year. Sometimes the struggle is real, and academic APA writing and creative writing intermingle. The worst is the strict APA-style writing requirements for my dissertation. My creative writing now has an outline and a couple of revisions for each chapter.
The short and sweet for me is always to trust your instincts and gut intuition. They will never steer you wrong. I would have been way more upset if I had followed the 3.5-year program layout and then found out there were another 2 to 3 standard matriculation semesters added at the end.
