The six-day retreat will help doctoral students from across the country with one of their most difficult requirements: Writing a dissertation.
A new Guilford College program aims to help doctoral students as they write and complete their dissertations.
The Guilford College Dissertation Boot Camp is a six-day retreat in June at the College that pairs faculty with students to help overcome typical roadblocks students frequently encounter in the dissertation writing process.
Seulki Lee-Geiller (right), a Doctoral Fellow at Guilford this year, is helping organize the program envisioned by President Kyle Farmbry. She is a doctoral candidate herself, and will defend her dissertation at Rutgers-Newark, in March on municipal governments using social media tools to increase political participation by its citizens.
Seulki sees much value in the program. Before arriving at Guilford last year, she stayed holed up in her cramped apartment in New York trying to write her dissertation. “It was a very lonely, difficult process for me,” she says. “I know this program would have been something I would have benefitted from.”
What sets the Guilford program apart from other dissertation retreats is that it’s open to all students across the country, says Seulki. “We want to bring together a diverse number of students to work together and help each other through the research and writing process. It really is something different.”
In addition to five to six hours of focused writing each day, the residential program will include workshops on building careers in academic and non-academic settings for people with their doctoral degrees.
The program is designed for students enrolled in doctoral programs in the United States who have completed at least the initial stages of their research and who are actively working on drafts of dissertation chapters and sections.
Participation in the program is limited to 15 students. To apply, students should send a letter of interest (with contact details), a brief 2- to 3-page overview of the dissertation topic (which can be adapted from a dissertation proposal), and a letter of recommendation from the student’s dissertation chair. Material should be sent to Reacie Daniel, in the Office of the President at Guilford College (danielpg@guilford.edu). For priority consideration, all material should be submitted by March 31.
More information on the program is available here.