>DH writes:
>
> >I read once in some reputable source that the leading presenting
> >complaint to NYC shrinks is inability to finish a dissertation.
>
>JG replies:
>
>A good many Ph.D. theses don't get done because the cost-benefit
>ratio seems skewed to those who rightfully wonder about their job
>prospects relative to the grueling nature of the writing process and the
>sometimes impossible task of having to please a three-headed committee.
>Dissertation coaches often try to persuade those who stall out for
>these reasons that finishing the thesis is both its own reward (i.e. brings
>a sense of accomplishment) and cultivates faculties applicable to fields
>other than academia proper (e.g. budgeting time, organizing a messy array
>of thoughts, etc.). What I've discovered though is that in the very journey
>of completing the project one takes on ritualized bad habits that one never
>sheds no matter what one does next in life. So in that sense it is ironically
>the "successful completion" of the Ph.D. thesis that engenders congenital
>derangement.
i never completed mine b/c my committee fell ill with a fatal illness, retired due to political warfare in the department, and died. with a kid to support, starting over to cultivate a new committee seemed like an insurmountable burden. i was ignorant about student loans and didn't know you could get them as a grad stud.
but i gotta say that, whatever i learned in the process, has been extraordinarily useful in every job i've ever had since then. and not just substantively, but in terms of the habits of which you speak -- though I may not be thinking of the same ones.
http://cleandraws.com Wear Clean Draws ('coz there's 5 million ways to kill a CEO)