I can’t believe I’m actually doing it. I started my doctoral degree program this week and it’s so crazy. I never would have thought a year ago that this is where I would be. But it feels right and I’m really happy to be doing it. Even though it’s really scary and intimidating and overwhelming! I love the fact that it’s online and nobody expects you to physically go to a library to do research, you can do all of it from home and without having to be awkward and uncomfortable somewhere. Although who knows? Maybe I’ll want to go to the library on campus at some point to work on things, which is nice to have as an option. I’m just feeling, like I said, overwhelmed by the whole thing right now, like starting to think about the dissertation. I’m glad that they have you start thinking about it right away so you get used to it and it (hopefully) loses some of it’s scariness, but on the other hand, I probably could have waited one class before seeing ALL of those requirements. But it’s also so awesome that I’ll be able to select a topic for my dissertation that interests and affects me personally. I’m thinking of doing something related to Autism and family support, maybe attached to the idea of the school district, maybe not. But it’s something I have personal experience with and means a lot to me, so it would give me an incentive to want to do the work. I was already starting to look at other dissertations today to get some ideas of what people write about, and it definitely seems doable, although the data and research part is intimidating. Again, I kind of wish I had those classes sooner so I knew more about all of that before making any kind of decisions about my topic. But here we go, I’m so excited and it’s nice to feel that way again, after everything that happened at the end of last year. I’ll try to post more and document my process and how I’m feeling, maybe that can turn into a presentation or paper later or something.
HorseMonkeyTiger 