My Ph.D. experience

I spent the 1990s at York University working on my Ph.D.  It got pretty difficult.  The trouble really started after I did my comp exams in 1993 (on which I did very well). When I submitted my first thesis proposal to my supervisor, it was already a few weeks overdue, though neither of us took the deadline very seriously.

As for the thesis proposal, he said it didn't have enough focus and wanted me to improve it.  A week later I submitted a revised proposal.  The following week I asked about it, but he hadn't had time to look at it yet.  The week after, he had looked at it but all he had to say is that it was the same as my first draft!  Three weeks down the drain, three weeks further overdue, of which I spent two weeks waiting for feedback.  For the next draft, I went over his head and submitted it to the Graduate Programme in History.  I wasn't happy about doing things this way, but I didn't know what else to do, and I wanted to get started on my research!

This was only the start of our troubles.  I remember that when I wrote some report on my research, I mentioned some anecdote about a foreigner in a local club wanting to go "where the dead are not so present." His response: "So?" So I'm sorry I mentioned it!

In 1996, just before he went away for the summer, he wanted me to add an "overview" to my first chapter.  I wrote it in a hurry because I had already prepared to write my second chapter and had to do it soon while the material was fresh in my memory.  He told me that it reflected "basic weaknesses." I wanted to talk to another committee member about it, but nobody was available!  I spent this crucial summer on my own.

What frustrates me is situations where they tell you it isn't good enough, so you try to make it better, but they don't really have anything more to say.  Even worse is when you try to improve something, and it just seems to make things worse.  When I made my first revision, I decided to add an appendix of historical subjects related to the thesis (my father's idea).  I had to write three more revisions until he finally told me, a year after I first submitted it, that it contained "numerous" inaccuracies and irrelevant items.  So much time had passed that I felt my only choice was to remove it completely.

The worst part of it was the waiting.  For an overcommitted professor like my supervisor, someone's Ph.D. thesis is the low priority that has to get sacrificed.  I submitted my first revision in April 1997 and met with my committee after the fifth revision at the end of September 1998.  In this 18-month period I spent close to 12 months waiting for feedback, which was very demoralizing.  It didn't help that I didn't have my first committee meeting till after my third revision.  He wanted me to improve it before meeting the committee, but how was I supposed to do so without their input?  It wasn't like we'd been making such wonderful progress together.

After I submitted my sixth revision, in early 1999, they told me the thesis was "unexaminable." After a week, I decided to demand an examination anyway.  After three more revisions, I had my final examination in October 1999, and actually passed!  I'd written a long letter to the assistant dean of graduate studies describing my experience, and she attended the examination. (She later told me she loved my thesis, for what that's worth.)

At the start of the long journey, I'd told myself: "I don't really care about the degree.  I just want the experience of writing a Ph.D. thesis." But even though I passed in the end, I'm not sure it was worth it.  I know I'm not interested in teaching history.  The best thing about it was the researching time I spent in London.