I can’t say I haven’t toyed with the idea before. I have. But why and what would I do with it? I mean after the Air Force finished using me for it. Because if I do it anytime soon, it will be for whatever the Air Force wants me to do it in–political science, history, or information systems. <\/p>\n
The email announcing this year’s program, the disciplines they need to fill, and the deadline to have the application submitted by (Oct 14) hit my inbox yesterday. Frankly, history is the only discipline that interests me. And I’m not certain it interests me enough to put myself through three years of graduate school (if selected, the Air Force would pay the costs, and it would be my job to go to school full time) and a five year commitment after that. I have to find a way to tie it to leadership, which I believe I can do easily. And that’s what would make it fascinating–studying it from a leadership perspective. I have some thoughts that have been rattling around regarding the American Revolution and the times we find ourselves in now that would be wonderful to explore. Can I find a department out there that would find that a useful thing?<\/p>\n
Why does this matter? From everything I can tell, at the PhD level, you need to mesh with your department–or at least your advisory team. Somebody on your faculty team needs to be excited about the things that excite you, or you have a miserable time earning your degree. I’ve checked several programs that would be personally convenient for me, but they don’t look promising. Oddly, The Ohio State University looks the most promising. I’d get a kick out finishing my academic efforts at the same institution I started them at–hopefully with better end results. And no matter where I went, I hope I’d be able to attend an istitution I wouldn’t mind talking about with some enthusiasm. Both my post-secondary degrees are from respectable, accredited schools. Don’t get me wrong there; they were there when I needed them. A “marriage of convenience” as it were and not one of desire or love. This time, I’d like a school I think I could love.<\/p>\n
Other than finding a program that “politically” meshes with me (and none of them seem to really do that), my major stumbling block is the foreign language requirement. Most require a demonstrated reading knowledge of at least two foreign languages. Some will substitute a methodology protocol (usually statistics–I can do that) for one of the foreign languages in specific cases. Rocks have more aptitude for foreign languages than I do, and I’m afraid the language requirement will shift most programs to the non-starter column for me.<\/p>\n
What would I do with it later? After I retire in a couple years, if I need income, a PhD would make me competetive for post-secondary teaching jobs–a very useful thing. I believe additional study in history would be useful for writing. I’m looking at American History prior to 1877, and that meshes with some other interest areas I have.<\/p>\n
Is this the right year to apply? Next year might be better in some ways. Going through the process this year would be useful. I’ve been told if I even might be interested, I should submit a package to get awareness about my interest up. Of course, if I delay until next year, that eight year commitment just got a year longer. Things to think about…<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
I can’t say I haven’t toyed with the idea before. I have. But why and what would I do with it? I mean after the Air Force finished using me for it. Because if I do it anytime soon, it will be for whatever the Air Force wants me to …<\/span> Continue reading →<\/span><\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paid_content":false,"footnotes":"","jetpack_publicize_message":"","jetpack_publicize_feature_enabled":true,"jetpack_social_post_already_shared":true,"jetpack_social_options":{"image_generator_settings":{"template":"highway","default_image_id":0,"font":"","enabled":false},"version":2}},"categories":[47],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-158","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-work"],"jetpack_publicize_connections":[],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"","jetpack_likes_enabled":true,"jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/jeanschara.com\/pmtoo\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/158","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/jeanschara.com\/pmtoo\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/jeanschara.com\/pmtoo\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/jeanschara.com\/pmtoo\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/jeanschara.com\/pmtoo\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=158"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/jeanschara.com\/pmtoo\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/158\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/jeanschara.com\/pmtoo\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=158"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/jeanschara.com\/pmtoo\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=158"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/jeanschara.com\/pmtoo\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=158"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}