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| Cindy and Winston's Wedding Day ~ July 2013 |
Recently, I had the privilege of attending my sister
Cindy’s second wedding. I watched the
ceremony with deep admiration for my sister’s courage to restart and recommit
to marriage. I am also proud of her
because she is about to begin a new educational journey in a Ph.D. program in
Urban Education at the CUNY Graduate Center. Committing to all of these new beginnings, she is very courageous indeed.
These new milestones my sister is experiencing made
me reflect on my stops and starts with many of my life happenings, especially
my dissertation. I remember having moments
when I said to myself, “I quit!” and moved on with my life free of the thought
of an unfinished Ph.D. As David Madsen quips
in his helpful book, Successful
Dissertations and Theses, I would be joining the “Shubert Society,” a reference
to the composer’s Symphony No. 8in B Minor, the “Unfinished.”
I actually thought quitting would be easy, but as it
turned out, that was not the case. I had daily thoughts nagging away at me: Am I really going to walk away from this
lifelong goal? What about all those classes I took, pages read, assignments completed
and comprehensive exams passed? Did I really want to be another ABD?
I even went as far as to consider what being ABD
would look like on my resume: Would it
signal to potential employers that I am a quitter or that I don’t know how to finish
what I started? Do I just leave it off altogether?
Last year I took a deep breath and I made a major decision. I decided, no, I did not want to continue being ABD. So what did I do? I mustered up the courage, energy and
determination to restart and recommit to working on the dissertation, the last
step in the doctoral process. Since then, the revisions and updates have felt
like ongoing restarts as I continue to get feedback and narrow my topic to a “doable”
scope. This is not an easy task, but
what keeps me going is regularly meeting some amazing Doctoras Latinas who remind
me it is DOABLE!
Today I celebrate my sister and her husband's union
and I wish them a life of love and happiness as they blend their beautiful
families. I also celebrate myself and
anyone else who is struggling with the doctoral process. It is clear to me from the Facebook group of
Latinas Completing Doctoral Degrees (www.facebook.com/groups/LatinasCompletingDoctoralDegrees)
that there are plenty of Latinas who are not only moving through the process,
but have actually earned the degree.
This is inspiring for us all and I hope this network will continue to
support each other. I keep in my mind
the words that my colleague and fellow Latina doctoral student, Omayra
Arocho, signed off on a recent email, “Pa'
Lante!”
