As I head into week three of the quarter, I wanted to post something a little more upbeat than my previous two posts from this quarter. I think that I've worked through some of my winter quarter angst, and I thought that I would share the process with all the potential students. The two reasons that I've been able to work through my worry are my classmates and this weekend, which was restful.
This quarter, my two primary classes are the first of the statistics series that I will take during the program and a class that is called "Health and Human Systems." I know. It isn't a very elucidating name. Basically, it is a class to teach us, as researchers, how to find, what we call "the gaps" in the literature. (The gaps are the things that we don't know or haven't answered yet. They are the places that need more knowledge.One finds these by reading the literature and looking for the gaps, hence their nickname.) Or that is my interpretation of the class. So far, all we've done is try to perform a literature search on our topics. Which was when I hit my first bump in the road.
We all have our areas of interest. Mine is quite clear in my head. But outside of my head, it is actually a large, historied, and occasionally, contentious area of medical research. I need to narrow my focus. The instructors believe that to do this we should pick a research question. I agree, in theory, but I'm not ready to do that...yet. I would love to have a specific research question. That would make things a LOT easier. However, I haven't yet identified the gaps in the literature, so how do I know what to ask? And so begins a frighteningly circular argument which prevents me from sleeping at night.
So, as I tried to perform this literature search, I realized that my topic was huge. I have read a lot on my very large topic, so in my head it made a lot of sense, but on paper, it looked like a hot mess. So I tried to narrow it. I thought that I had done a good job of this... the professors did not. The thing about the doctoral program is that, as a learning exercise, the profs want you to get yourself out of your own messes. No one is going to hold your hand. (I don't think that they would really let us go too far down, but they might let us stumble along for a while to teach us to pay better attention...) So after letting me know that they were not completely satisfied with my work, they then sent me on my way. And that way led to sleepless nights and extreme worry.
The reason that I am not having a complete nervous breakdown is that I found out I was not completely alone. Apparently, almost all of us walked out of that class with similar comments. Oh! The relief! Maybe I am not completely hopeless! Once again, it is good to have classmates. I still had to spend the week working through my issue and really determining what area within my ginormous topic I was going to focus on for this class, but at least, I am not alone!
And then, this weekend, I actually took a small break. My husband is here and we went to see one of my classmates perform in the community symphony. It was wonderful and relaxing and uplifting and shut off my worry for a good two hours. Afterward we all went for German food and a nice city walk. This mini-crisis has reminded me how very important good friends are during this process. It could be very solitary work - not one of us is interested in the exact same topic - but we are not lonely because we are all taking the same initial classes. Plodding though our steps may be, we are at least making progress all together.
I feel much more ready to start week three than I did week two, and that is a small victory.
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