Getting the Ball Rolling

Although I still have to fill out the official paperwork, the final nail dropped in my committee coffin yesterday. I got up the nerve to ask the last member to work with me; and, he agreed. When I sat down last week to start putting together the my exam lists everything still felt somehow unreal. Watching Dr. Chat create a folder with my name on it and put it in another folder titled “Exams” was like feeling the puzzle pieces lock together. Although it is nerve wracking—like that moment when the rollercoaster just begins to move slowly up the track, it also brought me a sense of calm and determination. I’m done agonizing over who to work with and ready to get to work.

About the agonizing, I’ve known who I should work with since last spring. I delayed asking people to be on my committee because I worried about personality conflicts and stories I heard from other students. My friends who are taking their exams this semester all counsel me cryptically to “choose your committee carefully,” without giving me any concrete advice about how to do that. It’s frustrating, because really I don’t have a choice about who I’m working with – our department just isn’t that big.

Unlike some of my friends, I don’t know exactly what my dissertation topic is, so I’ve constructed my comprehensive exam lists using the theories that I know I want to work with in my dissertation. That means I have to work with Dr. Belle (who will chair my committee) because she is passionate about one of my theory areas, Dr. Chat because he is the only one on the faculty who works with a particular theory, and Dr. Snarky because her work provides the intersection between the other two theories. I know there are personality conflicts between at least two of the members. I’m pretty sure that when it comes time to write for these folks I will be pulled in at least two different directions, but that is just the nature of the game. At some level, I have to believe that these people are adults who can figure out how to work together.

My concern now is that all my lists are theoretical, but that is a different post.