You finally crossed the elusive threshold from being a doctoral student to becoming a doctoral candidate.

This means you have labored through your doctoral coursework and defended your doctoral candidacy review. That journey alone probably took 2 to 3 years. In my case, it was four full academic years. 

It is a significant milestone in your doctoral journey.

But before you can go forth and embark on your research, you need to write and defend your proposal.

Today I attended my first proposal class after I defended my doctoral candidacy this summer.

As a first-generation college student, I realized I had no idea what would happen after the doctoral coursework phase.

This is what I learned in my first proposal class.

The proposal class prepares doctoral candidates to be ready for their dissertations. Think of this stage where you clearly understand your research and do the groundwork for your dissertation phase.

In my proposal class, the aims are three folds.

In 12 weeks, the aim to

#1 Develop and refine our research ideas

#2 Form our dissertation committee

#3 Write the drafts for the first three chapters of the dissertation, which is Chapter 1 (Purpose of research), Chapter 2 (Literature review), and Chapter 3 (Research Methods)

That’s a hell of a lot of work in 12 weeks.

According to my professor, attrition rates are the highest in the candidacy phase. Folx who couldn’t pass this stage are usually those who couldn’t do #1 because getting clear on their research question is where people trip the most.

In my following essay, I will share a framework for how to get clear on the research question.