Your Passion and Possible Paths to a

Dissertation Question

Dr. Howard Schechter

Dr. Joe Nolan

Lansdowne Residency

April 17-20, 2008

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Welcome to the Bunker!!!!

• No skateboarding allowed!

• Tunnels make great doo-wop harmony rehearsal halls.

• The food is very “cruiselike”. You will gain weight here if you don’t watch out.

• If you’re bored, ask the desk clerk for the treasure map.

• You will find yourself going outside, just to find out where you are.

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Unreasonable persons rule the world!!

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In order to achieve social change you must be an unreasonable person!!

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How to become a Fud (PhD)

• Have an interest area.• Come up with a research question.• Start exploring it during the KAMs, preliminary

coursework, professional papers• Let your annotated bibliographies or preliminary

research references serve as a foundation for your dissertation literature review.

• Pick the right committee• Have a thick skin.

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How to influence social change

• Find a problem in the world that moves you to action (What makes you upset????)

• It must be a problem that wakes you up at night.• Your search for a solution must keep you going

through the day.

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The Fiendish Master Plan

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Exercise 1- If you don´t know where you´re going, any road will take you there!

• What is your fiendish master plan ? (25 words or less)

• Why do you want to be a ¨FUD¨?

• How do these two answers match?

• Your school or College (Program)

• Your current area of concentration for study

• Your current occupation.

• Do these 3 answers relate? If not, what are you intending to do to change this?

• Where do you see yourself in 5 years?

• …in 10 years?

• How does this match up to your fiendish master plan?

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The road map

• The fiendish master plan• Preliminary research (KAMs, courses, papers, etc)• The proposal• Dissertation• The job search (Academia, Entrepreneurship, Other)• After you get there…

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Preliminary Research

• Identifies the problem• Explores all angles of the problem• Starts to brainstorm solutions

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The proposal & dissertation

• The proposal starts to offer solutions to the problem.• The dissertation tests them out.

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The job search

• Starts you on the road to providing that solution.

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Where are you at now? Research Exercise

• Does your research up until now match your fiendish master plan?

• If not, are you prepared to scrap what you have done so far? You really should be.

• If not, you still have options.• The rest of the day is devoted to exploring those

options

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Confused yet?

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Had enough for the day?