I’d like to use this post to tell you more about the actual doctoral program I am about to begin! PhD programs across the country (and across disciplines) vary dramatically. I also think that there can be an elusive and foggy mystery surrounding PhDs where people know what they are (a degree) but do not necessarily realize what they encompass.

Fast Facts:

  • School: Baylor University
  • Department: Curriculum & Instruction
  • Program: Curriculum & Teaching
  • Type: in-person
  • Actual Degree: Doctor of Philosophy (Ph.D.)
  • Dissertation: yes
  • Average Time: 5-ish years
  • Courses: 3 per semester, for 9 total credit hours
  • Work: full time student
  • Stipend: yes, through graduate assistantship

You can read more about Baylor’s program here.

A particularly fascinating fact that I discovered during this process is that there are R1 schools for academics in the same way that there are D1 schools for athletics! How wild is that?! Sometimes the R1 and D1 statuses correspond, but that is not always the case. Baylor is an R1 university- R1 stands for doctoral research with very high research activity. You can read a bit about that here. A less fun fact? There are no R1 Universities in South Dakota, at all. R1 schools typically offer fully funded PhDs to their students. Now, this is a bit confusing, and I did a lot of Googling and texting to round out my understanding of “fully funded”. Fully funded usually means that the university offers full tuition remission for doctoral coursework while also providing a stipend for part time work at the university itself. This part time stipend is not a particularly livable wage (for example, mine is *half* of what my salaried teaching job used to be), but it is meant to try and offset the reality of being a full time student who cannot also work a full time job during their studies.

My particular situation is easily described by the bulleted section above- first and foremost, I am a full time student again (yay!) who is also working part time to assist a professor with their research or teaching. This means that my actual weekly schedule is much more flexible than the teaching schedule I am most accustomed to. All three of my classes this semester are in the evenings- one each Monday, Tuesday, and Wednesday nights for three hours each. The estimation is that I’ll spend at least as much time doing homework for those courses as the actual credit hours are scheduled. So, if we’re doing some math here, that is 9 hours of class, 9-15+ hours of homework, and 15 hours of assistantship work. That works out to be right around the “40 hour workweek” that society deems regular, haha! From what I gather, it can be easy to let PhD studies consume all of your life and monopolize much more than 40 hours a week. In the last few years, I have worked hard to cultivate better boundaries between my work and personal lives so, generally, I think I have the tools to have more balance than not {pats self on back}.

My Fall 2022 courses are: 1) Fundamentals of Curriculum, 2) Contemporary Curriculum Design Implementation, and 3) Qualitative Research / Data Analysis. I am mostly excited paired with a tiny bit anxious to start into the classes next week. I remember there was a bit of a transition period when I started my Vanderbilt classes where I had to shift some of my thinking, speaking, and writing away from 17 year olds being my main audience!

Overall, I am thrilled to be a student again and look forward to starting classes in a few short days. Leaning into the newness of a new home, new city, new job, and new program is taking up lots of space in my mind and heart, but settling in happens each day to a more comfortable extent. I appreciate all your well wishes! I’m most active on social media sites- if you’d like to follow along on Twitter, Instagram, and/or Facebook just click those respective hyperlinks 🙂