TO ENSURE YOUR SUCCESS, YOU MUST RESPECT "THE DISSERTATION"

My goal here is not to evoke fear or overwhelm you. Rather, I wish to impress on you the seriousness of writing a dissertation. You will be doing yourself a huge favor if you appreciate the gravity of this undertaking, and with this appreciation, you will prepare and plan well.

I wish to illustrate this point by recounting a cautionary tale of hiking Half Dome in Yosemite National Park, an endeavor that I did not take seriously enough, and I suffered unnecessarily because I did not prepare or plan well for it.

Here is my story:

A small group of us embarked on a hike to Half Dome to celebrate my husband’s 60th birthday. The literature reads: “Half Dome is not for the faint of heart, the out of shape, the unprepared, or the beginner hiker,” as it is considered to be among the most difficult (and dangerous) hikes in our national parks system. Most hikers take 10-12+ hours to complete the 16-mile round trip, climbing 4,800 feet to reach the peak at 8,844 ft. The cables for the final 400-ft ascent are the scariest part.[1]

 A few months later, I was asked to give a dissertation workshop at the Graduate Theological Union on Berkeley, CA. I decided to start my talk with this brief description and recap of our Half Dome experience as an analogy to the challenges innate in writing the dissertation. 

 We were all strong and fit, and so we started off with great confidence. But several hours into the hike, the increasingly thin air made it harder to breathe and to think clearly. We became less and less confident the higher we got. We arrived at the infamous cables about 6 hours into our hike. Here, you essentially pull yourself up by grabbing onto them. Even up to the last step, I wasn’t sure I could make it. But once on top, we witnessed a stunning view of the valley (far!) below and experienced the amazing sense of accomplishment and sensation of standing on top of Half Dome. 

Still, we had to come down—another 4-6 hours of hiking—which we read was harder than the climb up. I developed oxygen sickness (feeling dizzy and nauseous). Then, half way down the mountain, one of my knees tweaked and my toes began to painfully rub up against my boots (I eventually lost four toenails). Every step hurt. 

Then the sun set. Even with headlamps, the darkness changed everything. When we finally reached the valley floor, we were nearly ecstatic … until we realized that we still had to walk back to our car (another mile?), and nobody remembered where the car was parked. Only the slightest shred of existing willpower and control held our panic at bay as we began walking down the road with no sense of bearing or compass. My husband yelled at our teenage son when he ventured ahead. But moments later, we heard him say, “I’m at the f------- car!” 

I drew the following parallels between the dissertation and our hike: (a) the early overconfidence in ourselves and underappreciating the difficulty of the task, (b) needing to sustain our efforts over a long period of time, (c) encountering unexpected road blocks, and (d) even when we were sure we were done – such a profound sense of relief – we were faced with another obstacle that took everything we had. 

 What is the takeaway here – the moral of the story? How does this translate to my message that the careful preparation for your dissertation will ensure the smoothest experience and the assurance that you will complete it?

FIND THE ANSWER IN NEXT WEEK’S BLOG POST.

[1] Between 2005 and 2015, there are been 290 accidents, 140 search-and-rescue missions, and 12 deaths.