This co-edited book provides doctoral candidates with a practical, cross-discipline handbook for successfully navigating the doctoral process – from initial program selection to the final dissertation defense and preparing for the faculty interview. Invited chapters from established higher education experts cover topics ranging from university and program selection, preparing for comprehensive exams and dissertation research, self-care and self-management strategies, and recommendations for maintaining personal and professional support systems. Each chapter includes strategies for success and practical tips, including how to create a study guide for the comprehensive examination, how to create a professional support group, how to talk to your family about the doctoral process, how to select and work with a chair and committee, how to identify an appropriate research design, how to navigate the IRB process, and how to master the research and writing process.

Over and over, studies have concluded that the doctoral experience is a monumental challenge in higher education, particularly for women. This book, Women Scholars: Navigating the Doctoral Journey, provides an enlightening ethnographic look at women and their doctoral developmental experiences. The book’s aim is to empower women to be able to contextualize their experience while also offering support and inspiring readers to consider alternative ways to successfully approach the doctoral process. Women anticipating and entering the life of academia will benefit from the voices and experiences shared by the women scholars in this book. The essay writers in this volume offer an examination of critical incidents in their doctoral experiences and offer strategies they have found helpful in managing those incidents. The book also addresses challenges presented by the transition from doctoral study to post-doc employment. The volume presents 46 essays from 40 women representing a range of ages, ethnicities, academic disciplines, sexual orientations, family circumstances, and family educational histories. Their stories are told in five stages: Stage 1: Preadmission to Enrollment Stage 2: First Year of Program Stage 3: Second Year Through Candidacy Stage 4: The Dissertation Stage Stage 5: Completion and Transition to Employment These are stories of empowerment, of pitfalls and barriers overcome, of successful negotiations of the graduate school process, of the joys and challenges of scholarly pursuits, of positive help-seeking behaviors and strategies, and of life after the dissertation is completed. Potential applicants for doctoral studies will walk away with a sense that graduate education is possible and that one can be successful. Higher educators in doctoral programs, as well, will acquire a deeper understanding and appreciation for the idiosyncratic challenges facing their female students and, one hopes, develop policies and/or strategies and behaviors that empower and encourage these students’ completion of their doctoral studies.

Navigating the Doctorate in Education is an engaging and honest conversation for anyone considering pursuing a doctorate degree in education. This book helps prospective students navigate the journey from choosing the right university to completing the research and achieving the ultimate title of doctor of education. Success in this advanced degree journey depends on understanding where to go; financial, personal, and professional demands; and the educational expectations of a doctorate degree. There are nuances of the process, whether you take classes on campus or online, that every candidate should know before beginning this terminal degree. A timely text, Navigating the Doctorate in Education encapsulates perspectives from professors and former doctoral candidates so you will be informed and prepared for success.

The aim of this book is to provide prospective and current doctoral students, and their supervisors, with a range of narratives of doctoral experiences. The book is an outcome of a conference where both academic and professional doctorate students at different stages of their research shared their experiences of the process of completing a doctorate. The ten candid accounts included in the volume provide a valuable insight into the kinds of challenges that arise and the ways in which these might (or might not) be overcome. In so doing, this book ‘lifts the lid’ on some of the hitherto concealed aspects of the doctoral process. The book also includes a chapter from an established academic with a record of writing about the doctoral student experience, as well as inserts from a doctoral programme leader and an experienced academic supervisor. In the Introduction, the editors review some of the current literature on experiences of the doctoral research journey and the research process. The book concludes with the editors’ reflections on both the unique nature of doctoral research for each individual and the common stages that students experience on the journey.

Over and over, studies have concluded that the doctoral experience is a monumental challenge in higher education, particularly for women. This book, Women Scholars: Navigating the Doctoral Journey, provides an enlightening ethnographic look at women and their doctoral developmental experiences. The book's aim is to empower women to be able to contextualize their experience while also offering support and inspiring readers to consider alternative ways to successfully approach the doctoral process. Women anticipating and entering the life of academia will benefit from the voices and experiences shared by the women scholars in this book. The essay writers in this volume offer an examination of critical incidents in their doctoral experiences and offer strategies they have found helpful in managing those incidents. The book also addresses challenges presented by the transition from doctoral study to post-doc employment. The volume presents 46 essays from 40 women representing a range of ages, ethnicities, academic disciplines, sexual orientations, family circumstances, and family educational histories. Their stories are told in five stages: Stage 1: Preadmission to Enrollment Stage 2: First Year of Program Stage 3: Second Year Through Candidacy Stage 4: The Dissertation Stage Stage 5: Completion and Transition to Employment These are stories of empowerment, of pitfalls and barriers overcome, of successful negotiations of the graduate school process, of the joys and challenges of scholarly pursuits, of positive help-seeking behaviors and strategies, and of life after the dissertation is completed. Potential applicants for doctoral studies will walk away with a sense that graduate education is possible and that one can be successful. Higher educators in doctoral programs, as well, will acquire a deeper understanding and appreciation for the idiosyncratic challenges facing their female students and, one hopes, develop policies and/or strategies and behaviors that empower and encourage these students' completion of their doctoral studies.

With the increasing focus on the critical importance of mentoring in advancing Black women students from graduation to careers in academia, this book identifies and considers the peer mentoring contexts and conditions that support Black women student success in higher education. This edited collection focuses on Black women students primarily at the doctoral level and how they have retained each other through their educational journey, emphasizing how they navigated this season of educational changes given COVID and racial unrest. Chapters illuminate what minoritized women students have done to mentor each other to navigate unwelcome campus environments laden with identity politics and other structural barriers. Shining a light on systemic structures in place that contribute to Black women’s alienation in the academy, this book unpacks implications for interactions and engagement with faculty as advisors and mentors. An important resource for faculty and graduate students at colleges and universities, ultimately this work is critical to helping the academy fortify Black women’s sense of belonging and connection early in their academic career and foster their success.

The Thinking Tools is a self-help book for preparing doctoral students towards navigating a 3-year PhD journey. It will help new doctoral candidates who just realized how overwhelming things are once the journey started. It also enlightens those doctoral students who are thinking about quitting the journey because the end never seems to be in sight. Based on the author’s ethnography study, the book points out key misconceptions at different research design phases, which are detrimental to postgraduates from developing countries due to differences in their learning cultures. The book includes several unconventional tips such as for fast critical writing and avoidance of research methodology thinking until after completion of rigorous literature review. The Thinking Tools book is a systematic compilation of selected simple tools for helping graduate students develop their understanding about the complex doctoral study. Kicking off with an emotional problem identification, the author introduces the innovative RQ Constructs formulae for developing novel inquiries. She details how this inquiry concept helps visualise the critical linkages among key research methodology components to ensure a doctoral qualification. The tools have proven to accelerate critical thinking competency if followed well by the doctoral students with some guidance from their supervisors.