Another critical period for a graduate student is after you have completed the coursework and before you get to the proposal stage. Students who withdraw at this point are the army of the ABD’s, all but the dissertation. Again, there are often practical reasons operating: lack of money, change of plans, the onset of health problems. More often, however, the problems are emotional and psychological ones. The problems at this stage all seem related to a pervasive anxiety that results in prolonged procrastination. Notice how this student put it in a candid letter to a friend who asked about his progress: "I’ve been paying my dissertation fees for five terms now and I still don’t have a proposal ready. I keep promising myself that this will be the term when I get the proposal in shape, but I never make it. I just can’t seem to get a fix on a good problem; everything important either has been studied already or is too big for me to handle. I make lists of problems, but nothing clicks. I talk to the professors, and each one suggests a different problem until I’m completely confused. And I don’t think I have the research skills I need; I have always been weak in statistics. I guess, to be honest, if I did find a problem and could feel positive about my skills, I would still have trouble developing a proposal. I just don’t know where to begin. Some students talk about 150-page proposals. How could I ever write 150 pages about what I will study?" A statement like this reflects anxieties that most ABD’s have at one time or another. Aside from being colored by the general fears described previously, the statement reveals some specific concerns about the topic, the research skills, and the proposal. #Dissertation #dissertationproblems #research #dissertationstudent #graduatestudent #doctoralstudent #students #coursework #ABDs