Skip to Content

Understanding the Challenges of Doctoral Studies

The term Ph.D. creates a lot of confusion. It is often used to describe someone with a doctorate, but its true meaning is more narrow than that. The doctorate is the highest level of education one can achieve. It signifies that the holder of the degree is an expert in their field.  The Ph.D. is a type of doctorate (Doctor of Philosophy) that is awarded in a specific discipline (Ex: Ph.D. in Education). Therefore, someone who holds a Ph.D. indeed has a doctorate. However, someone who holds a doctorate does not necessarily have a Ph.D.

Adding to the confusion even further, academics use these terms unofficially to mean something entirely different. This can make it hard for prospective students to choose which educational path they want to take, because it takes time to develop an understanding of how these terms are used in university circles.  The unclear terminology also makes it more challenging for students to explain what they are studying to other people.

So, what is the difference between a doctoral student and a Ph.D. student? The difference between a doctoral student and a Ph.D. student is doctoral students are training to become practitioners and Ph.D. students are training to become researchers. Doctoral students take coursework focused on finding solutions to real-world problems. Ph.D. students take coursework focused on analyzing and evaluating theories.

As such, prospective students should be well aware of the type of professional role they want to take on upon graduating. Although doctoral graduates can become researchers and Ph.D. graduates can become practitioners, it’s harder for them to do so. Each degree equates to the highest level of education in that field, but the work the students are prepared to do upon graduation tend to be very different.  

A quick comparison of the coursework should help explain.

For example, a physical therapist who is pursuing their Doctorate in Physical Therapy (DPT) would take courses focused on examining the musculoskeletal system and assistive technology, whereas a physical therapy student who is pursuing a Ph.D. in Physical Therapy would take courses examining research methodology and cognate coursework that supports the student’s areas of interest and aptitude. Each pursuit develops in the student a distinct expertise and skill set. Upon graduating they will have a specialized set of qualifying credentials that position them well for either researcher or practitioner, but usually not both.

This scenario holds true in most other fields as well and makes the transition from practitioner to researcher and vice versa more challenging.

Steps to Completing a Doctoral/Ph.D. Program

For the purpose of this section, I will use the technical definition of the word doctorate as described at the top of this article, which includes a Ph.D.

Completing a doctoral program is an arduous process and requires full commitment from the student. Upon entry to the program, students can expect to commit 4-7 years to see it through, if they finish at all. Sometimes, program completion can take up to 10 years. Program structure can vary widely, but they usually consist of three phases:

– Core Study

– Specialized Study

– Candidacy & Dissertation

The core study phase consists of foundational courses that students in the department must take to fulfill the general education requirements of the program. The specialized study phase consists of courses related specifically to the student’s chosen field of study. They can include seminars, practicums, and research.

The final phase consists of advancing from doctoral student to doctoral candidate and completing the dissertation. What is a doctoral/Ph.D. candidate? A doctoral candidate or Ph.D. candidate is a student who has completed their coursework and their comprehensive exams and is now working on their dissertation. They are no longer in structured classes and must work independently to complete the requirements of their dissertation.

During the transition to this phase, the student must propose their dissertation topic to a committee who may approve or deny their proposal. If approved, the doctoral student becomes a doctoral candidate and this committee will oversee them throughout their research and dissertation defense. If the student defends their research to the committee successfully, they will be awarded their degree.

My Experience Completing A Doctoral Program

The whole structure sounds very technical and formal. The reality is, it’s much more personal. The life of a doctoral student is very challenging and the experience will have a profound impact on them, and possibly the people to whom they are closest. Perhaps the best way to give you a flavor of what it can be like is to share my own doctoral journey.

One of the main reasons the life of a doctoral student can be so challenging is that they are often in a period of personal and professional growth in their lives. For many doctoral/Ph.D. students, they are taking on leadership roles at work and have begun to start a family. That’s the stage my life was at personally and professionally when I decided to pursue doctoral studies. My wife and I got married the year before. Soon after, she was pregnant with our first child. At work, I had recently been promoted to assistant principal and was starting at a new school.

For most people, that would have been enough. Not me though. I decided to add a terminal degree to this already difficult and time-constrained part of my life.  Sounds like fun.

Entering Into a Doctoral Program

As I was going through the program entry process one of the first things I was told by my admitting professor is that they expected the program to take precedence over anything else going on in my life. That included my career and my young family. This was not an ultimatum, but more of a reality check. She shared stories of other students who attended previous cohorts that ended up going through a divorce, lost a loved one, or had to endure life-threatening diseases like cancer. Woah.

She finished by telling me that the program will take approximately 4-7 years to complete, which means life events were going to be happening during this time. I needed to be prepared for how I would deal with them and what my priorities would be during life’s inevitable surprises. If I pushed the program to the side for any significant period of time, it was likely all the time, energy, and money I put into the program would be for nothing. I always appreciated her honesty that day.  

I went home and told my wife about this conversation. We took it very seriously and carefully considered the implications of what my professor had shared with me. In the end, I still really wanted to pursue it and my wife stood by me. But at least we knew more about what we were getting into. I promised her that the family would always come first and that in the long run, this would benefit our family. It was at this moment that the reality of a doctorate started to set in. The program was going to make life much harder than it needed to be for a long time.

Beginning a Doctoral Program

Classes began for the summer term in May of 2010, just in time for our July honeymoon, which we had already delayed a year. My work went everywhere with me, including on my honeymoon. It was not ideal, and not something I would recommend to anyone else. At that point, I had made a choice and needed to live up to the responsibility that came along with my decision. Picture me lugging my large textbooks and laptop through airport security and to our hotel in Vail, Colorado. How romantic.  

It was a lot of work, but I was thrilled to be in the program. I thoroughly enjoyed reading the latest research and deepening my understanding of my profession. The education system fascinated me and I was determined to be a part of the solution to its problems. After getting familiar with the existing body of literature those solutions became more clear to me. Unfortunately, educational research is not hard science. As a result, even when solutions to the system’s problems are well-founded in high-quality research, the political will is not always there to implement the solutions.

As each semester passed, life passed with it. In 2011, my first daughter was born. It was amazing. She made me more mindful of my contributions to the world, and more conscious of the time the doctoral program was taking away from my family. Nights and weekends were often dedicated to studying. Some time was carved out for my wife and daughter, but not nearly as much as I wanted. We were trying our best to be strong, but the program was definitely taking its toll.

I was a full year and almost $10k into the program. I couldn’t back out, even though the non-monetary price I was paying to stay in was going up by the day.

Heading into 2012 I was being positioned for a promotion, and my wife was taking on a new job with another company. We were very intentional about ensuring she still had the opportunity to pursue her goals. She is not the stay at home mom type. She wanted to be in the workforce, carving out her own professional path. As she took on more responsibility at work, we strived to find opportunities to tighten things up at home so our growing professional roles did not take away from what little precious family time we had together.

As the 2012 spring semester rolled on my professor made an announcement in class one day. The department was close to securing a contract to provide professional development services to teachers and principals in Abu Dhabi, UAE. He informed us that initially, one position would become available. If the early phases of the project were successful, more positions could become available later. It was a multi-year contract and a great opportunity for doctoral students to get real-life experience in the field. It sounded exciting and I was very interested. I went home to talk to my wife about the position.

Unfortunately, she was not as excited about the position as I was. Neither of us knew a lot about living in the Middle East, and we both had our concerns about what life would be like. Further, our family had already sacrificed a lot for my career, and it didn’t seem like the right time to up the ante. We decided to pass on the position but agreed to learn more about living and working in Abu Dhabi, just in case other positions would become available.

As 2012 rolled on the demands of the program mounted. The further along I got, the more they weighed on me. I believe this is due in part to the compounding pressures of a doctoral program. The longer you are in it, the more challenging it becomes. Classes become more abstract, less guidance is offered from professors, and classmates are less helpful because they also know less about the material being presented. You truly are on a journey that becomes more lonely as you go. It will culminate with your dissertation, surely the loneliest part of the journey from an intellectual perspective.

Entering Doctoral Candidacy

In 2013 I was eligible to be a doctoral candidate. The main differences between a doctoral student and a doctoral candidate are program structure and student status. The doctoral student shows up to class and works on the assignments in the class syllabus. The candidate writes their own roadmap to success. It’s up to the candidate to study independently and work towards developing a defensible dissertation. The candidate has more opportunities to network, build relationships with researchers, and establish connections that will follow them into their post-doctoral years.

The process is similar for Ph.D. students when they become Ph.D. candidates. My coursework was now complete and the focus of the program was finally shifting. It was all on me now. I had to focus on independent study so I could develop my dissertation.

I remember how excited I was to become a doctoral candidate. I thought it was going to be liberating to be free of the restraints of coursework and it was. However, candidacy brought with it new requirements for success. Luckily, time on campus was no longer one of them. This was especially important to me because we were about to move 8,000 miles away. In the summer of 2013 I accepted the next position that opened in Abu Dhabi and within weeks, was flying there by myself, as my wife and daughter stood behind to wrap things up there.

From this point on, any research I wanted to conduct would have to be completed via the electronic library. There were some physical texts that I liked to reference, so I made sure to get hard copies of those before I was scheduled to leave. The residency process in the U.A.E. is cumbersome, so my wife and daughter had to wait until I got cleared. It took nine long weeks to get my paperwork in order and find an apartment, but I was finally cleared and returned to the U.S. to get my family, help them sell everything we owned, and bring them back with only a few suitcases to this new world. Again, not something I recommend as the doctoral program, full-time work and raising a toddler all at once is already hard enough. However, I was determined and my wife knew that. The opportunity of a lifetime had come our way and we were going to take it.

The two months without them was very busy at work. I spent most of my time on work-related activities. It was very important for us to hit the ground running. We believed the project depended on it. I needed to learn a new culture, workplace norms, and public norms just to be ready to show up to work each morning. Then came the actual work, which was fulfilling but very challenging.

One fact remained. I still had to dedicate significant time to my studies. I remembered what my professor had told me. The doctoral program is a high priority. That was not going to change just because the university had hired me. In fact, I think the opposite may have been true. My new colleagues overseas and back in the states expected my very best all the time. So did I.

It was right around this time that the institution that had agreed to allow me to complete my dissertation research through them backed out, handing me another roadblock to overcome at an inopportune time. This was a really big deal. It is a lot of work to get an organization to allow you to access their data and use it to conduct your research. It took months of discussions and planning to get to this stage. Now I had to start all over.

Further, I had prepared the entire structure of my dissertation around this organization. What was I going to do without them? How could I find another institution with whom to work? I didn’t even live in the same country anymore. I was about five months away from my dissertation defense and thought that all of the work I had completed up to this point was going to be useless.

Luckily, I had an experienced dissertation chair. He had been supportive of me throughout the entire program, including on my path to my new position. He had seen this script play out before. He guided me as I worked to dig myself out of this hole and kept me focused on the big picture.  

I quickly pivoted to find the new topic of my dissertation. Maintaining the integrity of my study was important to me. I took the time to carefully consider the implications of the new topic I was choosing, given that I no longer had a physical library to visit for hard to find resources.

In the end, I had to completely change the topic of my dissertation and get it approved again by the committee. Under the advice of my dissertation chair, I chose a topic that was closely related to my previous topic so most of the literature and resources I had collected would still be relevant.

The 2013 fall semester came to a close and the team was falling behind at work. We did not have a business manager so we were all trying to do our part in picking up the slack to handle the non-education elements of the project. We all felt very disorganized.

Some of my colleagues were justifiably returning to their country’s for the holidays. My wife and I decided to stay in the U.A.E. I had just brought them over six weeks prior and we didn’t feel like taking another 15-hour plane ride. We chose to work through the holidays, although we did take some time off to spend Christmas in Dubai.

The few days off we had been wonderful. I never dreamed Christmas could be so nice in a Muslim country. They truly were wonderful hosts and made sure everything that we were used to at home would be available to us there. As a bonus, we got to spend Christmas on the beach.

Unfortunately, that was the end of the fun. For the rest of the break, I needed to give as much time as possible to work at the office during the day and on my dissertation in the evenings and on weekends.  My professional workload was mounting as I was also filling in as best I could for colleagues who were on vacation. Since I was still in the country, I needed to keep up with my project work and the work of others so we could begin the new semester in a strong position to succeed.

As we continued on without a business manager, my wife saw our struggles and asked if she could help.  This was only 2 months after her arrival and she was already getting bored and began looking for a job, so the timing seemed right. She had substantial business experience and we really needed someone who knew what they were doing. During that Christmas break, we worked together on sorting through the backlog of the previous few months.

Shortly after, she was hired on full time. She was tasked with operating the office, managing the finances, and organizing our district and school-based events. Imagine that up to this point we did not have someone on the team handling these important tasks.

Our team was knee deep in the challenges that come along with taking on this kind of adventure. My family was working through the implications of working full time, caring for our toddler, completing my doctorate, and learning to live in a foreign country. The challenges were compounding at home and in the office. Doctoral degrees don’t get completed in isolation, and I was learning that first hand. Did I mention how much I love my wife?!

Preparing for the Dissertation Defense

That brings us into January  2014. Only two and a half months until I needed to fly back to Florida for my dissertation defense. My colleague in Abu Dhabi had just defended hers successfully in December and she was still alive, so I figured I could make it out too. I had about 10 weeks to push through before I faced the moment for which I had spent four years preparing.

Most of my preparation time was filled with worry and anxiety. I wanted to make sure every i was dotted and every t crossed. But I knew that was not possible. The initial data set upon which my dissertation was based was 268 pages. I had managed to whittle that down about 20-25 pages. I had convinced myself that the committee was going to find something in the data that I missed. I feared what would happen if I could not recall the cited information from memory. There is no way a person could know every intricate detail about their topic. Or is there?

Of course not, but that’s not what I was saying to myself at the moment. A few days before my flight back to Florida I had a chance to speak with my dissertation chair. During our discussion, I was candid about my worries. He provided me with some amazing advice.

He said the truth is I will be walking into that room as the expert on the topic. No one else in the room had spent nearly as much time studying this topic the way I had. It was my job to be confident in what I had studied, and in my findings. I needed to control the narrative so the committee members would be reassured that my work was of the highest quality. He assured me that all of this was true because he was not going to allow me to walk into that room otherwise.

He was a great chair. That piece of advice got me through my defense.

Between the fifteen hour flight back to the States the day before the defense, my nerves leading up to the defense, and the fifteen-hour flight back (on the same day of the defense), I was beyond exhausted. I could barely sleep on the flight back. Before I left Abu Dhabi to head to Florida my boss told me I should take the rest of the week off to relax because I was going to need it. I told him I would be into work the day I got back. That did not happen. He was right…

Publication

Ahh, publication, the period after the dissertation defense which reminds you that there is still time to mess things up. It was about 6 weeks until graduation and I needed to finish all edits and final touches on what ended up becoming a 110-page book. It did not feel like I had enough time. I was unsure if I was going to be able to make all my edits and get my dissertation formatted for publication before graduation. During each free moment, I worked tirelessly to finish the last task in front of me. I was quickly approaching the finish line.

In time final edits were approved for publication. I submitted my paperwork and was cleared to receive my doctorate. It was officially over. The only thing left to do was walk.

Graduation

Finally. It was time to graduate. My wife and I flew back to the States with our daughter to take part in the ceremony. It was very exciting. We had the opportunity to spend time with family and celebrate the end of this 4-year journey. One that we were both happy to see finally come to an end. My stateside colleagues held a luncheon to celebrate with me and leadership was kind enough to be there to congratulate me. I was honored.

I remember one discussion in particular that has stayed with me. One of the senior project leaders was recalling the memories of her doctoral program. She remembered the pressures caused by the massive workload, sleepless nights, long weekends, and seemingly never-ending possibilities of where research can take you. She described the relief she felt as her dissertation defense concluded and graduation approached.  

Then, her story took an unexpected turn. As graduation passed and she was figuring out what to do with all the time that was open in her schedule she came to a surprising realization. She was mourning. To her, the dissertation process was like a pregnancy. She nurtured her brainchild through independent study, research, and writing. She stood tall in the face of fear, uncertainty, and doubt to make sure her creation reached its potential. She stayed strong through defense and publication until it no longer needed her. Finally, it could stand on its own.

This period was her postpartum. She didn’t know what to do with her time now that her creation had reached maturity. She decided to take some time to mourn, clear her head and then figure out what was next.

I was surprised to learn that the pregnancy metaphor is not uncommon for female doctors to use when recalling their studies. I did not understand this at the time, nor do I fully understand now. But I didn’t have to. She was kind enough to share the same story with my wife to give her the female perspective on the doctoral experience. That went a long way in helping my wife appreciate what I had gone through in terms I could never articulate or fully appreciate.

We returned back to Abu Dhabi and my local in-school colleagues had a surprise for me. One of our Vice-Principal’s invited us out to his farm in the desert to celebrate my graduation with a traditional Emirati dinner. Further, his principal had a graduation gift for me. It was a Kandora. This is the traditional Emirati cultural garb that is emblematic of Gulf Arab culture. All the local men wear it. I was honored to have been given this symbol of appreciation from two local men who had grown on me over time.

What’s makes that story interesting is that when we began working with them they were reluctant to have us in their school, because they were not fond of their previous group of advisors. As a result, they were hesitant to open up to us. We tried to take that in stride and just acted like ourselves. They had a right to be reluctant. We made sure to put the needs of their school first, even if it wasn’t in the “strategic plan”. They respected us for that, and we respected them for being willing to stand up for their school when they thought it was right.

Back to the dinner. It was excellent. We had a traditional rice dish served with fresh goat meat. They taught me how to eat with my hands in the traditional style. Then, they brought out a cake to celebrate. They thanked us for how we had helped them and their school. They also thanked us for trusting their judgment as the leaders at the school.

It was a truly amazing experience. We toured the farm and got to see the goats, camels, cows, chickens, and more. He shared stories about how his family acquired the farm as the U.A.E. was beginning to rise to prominence. He even had an old truck that the founder of the country had owned when he was in power.

I was thrilled to have this event as the capstone to my dissertation story. It felt validating, like the way every doctoral program should end.

Looking Back On My Doctoral Program

The truth is, every student’s journey does not end this way. I like to think I got the job in Abu Dhabi because I was the right person for the job. To an extent, I was. But like anyone else, I was also in the right place at the right time. If not for this career opportunity I could have finished out my studies as a school administrator, with no real financial reward on the horizon to help offset the burdensome high cost of the program.

It could have been worse than that. There are many doctoral students who never become candidates and many candidates who never become doctors. The reason I am sharing so much of my story is that it was not until years after it was over that I realized how fortunate I was for the way things had worked out.

Advice for Deciding if a Doctoral Program is Right for You

Your life events won’t be the same as mine. But you will have them. I hope by sharing mine I have given you some insight into exactly how unpredictable this period of your life can be. I believe that my professor tried to tell me everything she could about the risks of the program before admitting me. It’s one of those undertakings in life that you never really know about until you are fully immersed.

If you choose to enroll in a doctoral program, make sure you (and your significant other, if you have one) are ready to stay committed through the end of the program. This is not something you want to start without finishing. The personal, financial, and professional costs are just too high.  Not to mention, my wife and I held off on having our 2nd child for all 4 of those years I was in the doctoral program.

I can’t say I blame her. This literally will change the course of your life and how you plan your family’s timeline of important events and occasions. Your wedding (or honeymoon!), child’s birth, vacations, holidays – all of it will pass you by while you hold those books and laptop. Be sure you are ready to make time for all of it. You want to look back on those life events knowing you gave them the attention they deserved.   

You will need people in your life that will be understanding and supportive. It is sometimes hard to tell if the right people will be able to follow through on that commitment. Additionally, you might not have yet met some of the people you will need most.   

Looking back I would do it all over again. However, if the hypothetical changed and you take Abu Dhabi out of the equation, the financial calculus creates much more uncertainty. The program was $40,000. At the end of my studies, we had $113,000 in student loan debt.

The cost of the doctorate could never be financially justified as an educator in Florida. The district in which I was working before joining UF offered a $1,000 per year raise for a doctorate. It would have taken me well over forty years to pay off the loan. I would have never seen a return on my money, and my family would have had to sacrifice for a degree that had little value in the local marketplace.

As I experience life with them now, I place a very high value on the time we spend together. I feel fortunate that a lot of that time is high quality and we are intimately connected. It helps that we have a little extra money to make those moments a bit more enjoyable. Making memories with my family and putting smiles on my daughter’s faces will always be more valuable than the letters after my name.

In my opinion, the big takeaway from my story would be to have a well thought-out and researched plan for what you will do after earning your doctorate. Why do you want it? What will this expert degree get you? Are you pursuing it for the right reasons? Is the time and financial commitment worth it? You need to be very honest with yourself and intentional about your decision.  Make sure the potential rewards are worthwhile.

In my case, my original goal was to serve as a vice-principal during the day and an adjunct professor on the side. Had things worked out that way, I may have a very different opinion on my decision to pursue a terminal degree. In that scenario, there would have been substantially fewer financial resources available for my family because the price for that degree would have been paid during my daughters formative years.

That’s not to say I would not be happy with the intellectual pursuit and the education I received. I would be. But the risks I took and the potential impact they could have had on my family are much more apparent to me now as I look back than they were before. My student loan payment was going to be $1,300 per month from 2014-2024! During those critical years during my daughters lives an amount of money greater than our entire discretionary budget would have been replaced with student loan payments. The experiences we would have been able to enjoy together would have been significantly different from what they are now. There would be no swimming lessons, no piano lessons, and fewer trips to see family. Our lives would be very different.

Now you could make the argument that I would have found other opportunities. That is quite possible. However, I am not sure I would be comfortable taking that risk today. I consider the implications of my decisions much differently at 39 than I did at 29.

Make sure there is at least a financial payoff in the cards to offset the costs of your loans. If there is not, don’t try to justify bearing the costs of the program. Let the numbers make the case for you. Accept that your family will be greatly impacted by your decision. If the payoff is not there, consider coming back to the idea of pursuing a doctorate after your kids are older. You can still take classes to fill your intellectual thirst for knowledge through free online courses offered through great universities like M.I.T.

If you really must pursue a doctorate that will not offset its financial burden, understand the ripple effect it will have on your life and the lives of those around you for years to come.

Risks of Enrolling in a Doctoral Program

I understand why one might be enamored with pursuing the highest level of education. Growing into an expert in your field is appealing to many people. However, such an impressive accomplishment comes with significant risks and costs, many of which are out of your control. Here are a few of the risks I wish I knew more about before starting a doctoral program::

  • The doctoral program non-completion rate is almost 50%
  • The divorce rate for married doctoral students is as high as 60%
  • Most doctoral students who graduate won’t see a desirable monetary return on their investment (this is especially true for students in the humanities and social sciences)
  • Job prospects are not strong. When a position is available, it is usually highly competitive and requires relocating
  • Doctoral students face higher rates of mental health problems

Couple this information with the complete commitment students must make and the sacrifices they will endure, and it’s easy to understand why rates of anxiety, depression and other mental health problems are higher for graduate students than the general population. One in two graduate students experiences psychiatric distress and one in three experience a psychiatric disorder during their program.

A doctoral program is a demanding and burdensome experience. Many program participants come out the other side believing the rewards were not worth the risks. Reviewing the risks of enrolling in a doctoral program should give prospective students a reality check on what life is like for candidates and graduates.

Students Who Don’t Complete Their Doctoral Program

As noted above, many students never finish their doctorate. In most cases, these students complete the coursework but fail to complete their dissertations. These students are informally known as ABD’s.

What does ABD mean? ABD means All But Dissertation. This is the unofficial term for doctoral students who completed their coursework and either did not make it to the candidacy phase, or made it to the candidacy phase but did not complete the dissertation process through the defense phase.

Not everyone finishes. Not even those with an iron will. Be keenly aware of this risk. Becoming an ABD was one of my biggest fears when I was in the program. I would think that is true for most students and candidates. I used it as motivation, as I am sure most people do. I thought to myself there was no way I could put all this time, sacrifice, energy, effort, and money into an endeavor that did not yield the desired result.

You won’t hear many people say this but the truth is had a few different events gone the other way I could be an ABD, as could most candidates. The margin for error is so slim that if you change a couple of factors along the way, the compounding effects of their impact could lead to a dramatically different result for the overwhelming majority of program participants.