Completing the Doctorate: Reflections of a Recent Graduate.

Introduction

After completing her doctorate, Julie Kaomea is now an Assistant Professor in the Department of Teacher Education and Curriculum Studies at the University of Hawaii . She is a Native Hawaiian who focuses her scholarship on misrepresentations of Native people in school curricula. Her article is based on her recent experiences as a doctoral student struggling to complete her dissertation. However, instead of urging her fellow students to rush through the process, she recommends that they work through it slowly and derive from it as much learning as they can. Her metaphor of the tortoise and the hare is apt. As she points out, when it comes to completing the doctorate, "Slow and steady wins the race."

This article has been put in the "Student Voice" section because it deals with an issue of great interest to doctoral students and forms a nice complement to ,layne Higgins's article titled "The Art and Science of Avoiding the Dissertation" which was published in the summer 2000 issue of Academic Exchange Quarterly. Dr. Ben Varner, University of Northern Colorado, Academic Exchange Quarterly Senior Editor .

In this article, [Author] reflects on her recent experience as a doctoral student. Through a witty analysis of a graduate student joke about a thesis-writing rabbit, she offers valuable suggestions to students embarking on their doctoral journeys. [Author] advises that when progressing through a graduate program, one should emulate the tortoise instead of the hare. Rather than setting one's sights on rapid completion of the degree, graduate students should take the journey slowly, immerse themselves in the experience, and revel in "the getting there." When it comes to graduate study, [Author] concludes, "Slow and steady wins the race."

A few months back, in the throes of dissertation writing and desperate for some mindless distraction or comic relief, I logged on to my e-mail to find a jewel of doctoral student humor awaiting me. It was a joke, or, more precisely, a fable, entitled "A Rabbit's Thesis."

It was clear from the document's numerous inscriptions that this anonymous piece had been forwarded from doctoral student to doctoral student across the country before arriving at my blurry computer screen in our tiny graduate student office at the University of Hawai'i. The most recent sender was a cyber colleague, a fellow doctoral student in Minnesota whom I've corresponded and commiserated with several times over e-mail, but am yet to meet personally. Her introductory message, cc'd to me and a dozen others, was short but sweet:

Dear Friends,