mdsimants » reading list http://mdsimants.com Thoughts from a man on a journey. Fri, 13 Jan 2012 05:58:14 +0000 en hourly 1 http://wordpress.org/?v=3.3.1 5 Things I Learned in my First Quarter of Being a PhD Student http://mdsimants.com/2009/12/10/5-things-i-learned-in-my-first-quarter-of-being-a-phd-student/ http://mdsimants.com/2009/12/10/5-things-i-learned-in-my-first-quarter-of-being-a-phd-student/#comments Thu, 10 Dec 2009 21:10:40 +0000 mdsimants http://mdsimants.com/?p=128 Continue reading →]]> As many of you are aware, in early October, I began my PhD program in Business.  Tomorrow marks the last day of the first quarter.  In this first quarter, I took two courses: Strategy Planning and Operations in Business and Theory and Practice in Business.

I have read over 2800 pages of material and have written over 195 pages of material.  I have compiled over 600 pages of notes from the readings.

From a reflective point, here are five things that I learned:

  • Time-management is crucial. It is hard to take a course (or two), work full-time, and have a family. Yet, fortunately, my family is very understanding of the fact that every “not at work and awake” hour was spent in my office working on this (or my other) coursework.
  • Learn to love to read.   Between required journals, chapters, and journals to support discussions/papers, I’ve read northward of 2,800 pages in the last 10 weeks.
  • Discuss what you’re working on with everyone.  I have had discussions with my co-workers about points that I extracted from readings.  I have discussed points on Facebook, Twitter, Chats and Email.  This really helps formulate your own views and opinions as well as gain insights from people with a different set of experiences and understandings.
  • Read Bandura’s writings on Social Cognitive Theory.  With the direction of my dissertation, this theory is largely applicable.  While his research is “older” the principles that he outlined are still at the heart of modern research in Social Cognitive Theory.  Amazingly interesting stuff.
  • Develop strong writing skills, and use them everyday — not just in your coursework.  I have recognized gaps in my writing abilities through this (and my other) course.  I have tried to be more cognitively aware of my writing in not only course-related work, but also in my day-to-day personal communications (both written and spoken) of grammar, word choice, and structural elements of the English Language.

Well, Q1 is done.  I’m now officially in the off-season.  Start back up with Q2 in April.  Between now and then, I have another 1500 or so pages of journal articles that I want to work my through (on a MUCH MORE LEISURELY pace), and a couple of books related to my education, and a few related to other subjects (like Estes’ SimChurch).  My first reading though, will be the oft-reference Jospeh Schumpeter classic: Capitalism, Socialism, and Democracy (1942).

But first, a nap.

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