Saturday, December 20, 2014
Fin
Today I marched across the stage, and it felt wonderful. Family came in town for the graduation. Faculty stayed after for a photo op. It was a great experience. For those who are on the fence about marching. Do it. During this process I have had a hard time feeling like an actual student. Even after I had submitted my final papers for my final classes in my final semester, being a student was only validated when I walked into the HPER this morning to get ready to march.
On that thesis
When I started this program, I wanted to conclude my graduate education with a thesis. The faculty recommended that I reconsider, due to my requirement of graduating in two years. Factors beyond my control may push the thesis timeline outside of two years, and while many students have been successful, completing the degree in two years was more important than the thesis.
I have also learned that those students who are pursuing the thesis track enter graduate school having already identified their thesis topic. I had not. Considering the research burden of the thesis, I would not have been successful.
I have also learned that those students who are pursuing the thesis track enter graduate school having already identified their thesis topic. I had not. Considering the research burden of the thesis, I would not have been successful.
Thursday, July 31, 2014
Using EBL
The Electronic Book Library (EBL) is a great way to obtain electronic copies of many books, but there are some limitations that I'd like to describe.
Finding EBL books: When you search for resources on the UNO Library main page, you will likely be provided with a list of results that includes items for which "View Now" with a small white "e" in an orange circle is displayed. Clicking here will provide a link which usually will open up the resource in the EBL (there are other electronic libraries, but I will stick with EBL for this entry). I have found that approximately 10% of the hard copy books in the UNO library are available on EBL. Over 75% of the EBL books are not available in hard copy from the UNO library.
Keeping them handy: You can place the book in one of your collections, which does not create a loan, but does create an easy way to reference the book later.
Reviewing and creating a loan: When you open the book in the EBL you will have about 15 minutes to browse through the book before you are asked if you want to create a loan. The loan duration is variable. Based on the contract that UNO has with EBL, there is a limit to the number of people who can create a loan with EBL at any given time. If you are using the book for class, you may want to grab it early, print out a few sections, and then return it. Once the maximum number of users have the book out on a loan, EBL will state that the resource is currently unavailable. To my experience, EBL provides no estimated time to availability, nor a means to recall the text, contrary to a physical library.
Printing: You can print approximately 15% of the text, either by page number or chapter. When you click on print it will display a PDF, of which you can save and email/review/print. My experience has indicated that this 15% limit is a lifetime limit, therefore in order to print the whole book you will need to solicit the help of your classmates.
Chris
Finding EBL books: When you search for resources on the UNO Library main page, you will likely be provided with a list of results that includes items for which "View Now" with a small white "e" in an orange circle is displayed. Clicking here will provide a link which usually will open up the resource in the EBL (there are other electronic libraries, but I will stick with EBL for this entry). I have found that approximately 10% of the hard copy books in the UNO library are available on EBL. Over 75% of the EBL books are not available in hard copy from the UNO library.
Keeping them handy: You can place the book in one of your collections, which does not create a loan, but does create an easy way to reference the book later.
Reviewing and creating a loan: When you open the book in the EBL you will have about 15 minutes to browse through the book before you are asked if you want to create a loan. The loan duration is variable. Based on the contract that UNO has with EBL, there is a limit to the number of people who can create a loan with EBL at any given time. If you are using the book for class, you may want to grab it early, print out a few sections, and then return it. Once the maximum number of users have the book out on a loan, EBL will state that the resource is currently unavailable. To my experience, EBL provides no estimated time to availability, nor a means to recall the text, contrary to a physical library.
Printing: You can print approximately 15% of the text, either by page number or chapter. When you click on print it will display a PDF, of which you can save and email/review/print. My experience has indicated that this 15% limit is a lifetime limit, therefore in order to print the whole book you will need to solicit the help of your classmates.
Chris
Saturday, May 24, 2014
One Student's Doctoral Application Experience
Building on the Thesis post, here is one student's experience of applying for participation in a doctoral program.
The PhD process is sort of time consuming, but is fun in my opinion. You have to write a statement of purpose (anywhere from 500-1500 words) describing your research interests, relevant experience, etc. and make sure it's tailored to each school you apply to. You have to take the GRE and do relatively well on the quant and verbal since everything is so quant focused now days. Most places ask for 3 rec letters, but I had 4 just to be safe. They were all UNO professors, and the 3 I primarily used were the big 3 from my thesis committee. Some places ask for writing samples as well. Fit is really important- the school was a perfect fit for my research interests and they were willing to fund, so it was a win-win. I've always read not to pursue your PhD if the school won't fund it. I applied to 12 schools and went 8/12 acceptances...I'm glad I got my MS because I think it really helped me. Once you start to get acceptances, you'll be invited out to recruitment weekends which are typically all paid for. These are really fun and a great way to get to know the department, campus, get a feel for things, ask questions, etc.
If anyone else has any experience with this, please bring it up.
The PhD process is sort of time consuming, but is fun in my opinion. You have to write a statement of purpose (anywhere from 500-1500 words) describing your research interests, relevant experience, etc. and make sure it's tailored to each school you apply to. You have to take the GRE and do relatively well on the quant and verbal since everything is so quant focused now days. Most places ask for 3 rec letters, but I had 4 just to be safe. They were all UNO professors, and the 3 I primarily used were the big 3 from my thesis committee. Some places ask for writing samples as well. Fit is really important- the school was a perfect fit for my research interests and they were willing to fund, so it was a win-win. I've always read not to pursue your PhD if the school won't fund it. I applied to 12 schools and went 8/12 acceptances...I'm glad I got my MS because I think it really helped me. Once you start to get acceptances, you'll be invited out to recruitment weekends which are typically all paid for. These are really fun and a great way to get to know the department, campus, get a feel for things, ask questions, etc.
If anyone else has any experience with this, please bring it up.
One Thesis Experience
As distance education students it is challenging for us to find students further along in the program who have completed their thesis. Below is one student's experience who resided in Texas during her participation in the UNO Political Science Masters program. To give you an idea of her motivation and dedication, she would take three summer classes at a time, where most of us tackle only one.
The thesis route was really good for me. I enjoyed the independent researching and working with my committee on it. It's a lot of work, but definitely a good experience if you're wanting pursue your PhD. The process was a bit stressful, but everything worked out well. I defended my thesis to my committee about 2 weeks ago. It's being published through the University and I am officially done with my MS (woo hoo)!
Dr. Adkins was my thesis advisor. Dr. Holloway and Dr. Landow were also on my committee, as was Dr. Scherer (from history, he was my outside representative). I defended my proposal (about 35 pages or so) in December via a Skype call since I am in Texas. I provided a PowerPoint as a guide for the committee and gave a 30min presentation. For the actual defense, we did the same thing, with an updated presentation and PowerPoint for the committee to follow. I talked for about 45min about the actual project and they asked questions and gave me suggestions on what to improve and where to go from with the finished project. Dr. Adkins was great (although he was on sabbatical this year) and really helped me out with direction and ideas. The rest of the committee was helpful, too.
After she wrote the above, I asked her to expound a little bit...
As for my thesis, I had a pretty good idea going into it about what I wanted to do. I used a theory coined by a professor's whose class I took as an undergrad to guide my work. Dr. Adkins helped me choose my topic and narrow my focus a bit. My thesis was an archival case study over presidential accountability, President Johnson and America's involvement in the Six Day War (June 1967). I initially wanted to focus on a variety of foreign conflicts, but Dr. Adkins helped me hone in on a war that has garnered relatively little attention in regards to presidential accountability. I started contacted Dr. Adkins last summer because Dr. Petrow told me he would be my advisor. It was difficult to get a hold of him, and I was even taking one of his classes haha. He did eventually get back to me, but it took quite a bit on my part to get the ball rolling. The thesis takes A LOT of self-motivation and discipline. I just started getting sources together for my literature review and started putting my defense together when Dr. Adkins said my project theme and idea was good to go. The entire first semester, I worked on the proposal and did research. I traveled to the LBJ library in Austin (it's only a 4 hour drive) and spent a few days in the archives gathering all of my documents. This is actually another reason we decided on LBJ for my thesis- proximity for my research. Working full time and trying to travel around the country for documents would have been next to impossible. Dr. Adkins made sure to call me before every trip to the archive so as to prepare me for how to look for things and make sure I was sticking to the plan. He was great about giving me his cell number (which he says he never does) just in case I needed anything. Over the course of the semester, I sent him each part of my thesis proposal to review: the introduction, the lit review, the overview of chapters, the importance of the project, the breakdown of the theory I was using, etc. He made his edits and I fixed things accordingly. In December, I defended my proposal to my committee, which Dr. Adkins helped me set up. He choose my outside rep and we worked together to choose my other two political science reps. The paperwork has to be submitted at least one semester before you graduate and getting everyone on the same page to get that done on time was sort of a hassle...we cut it VERY close to the deadline, but got it done!
After the proposal was done, I got to work on writing, which actually was the easy part. I was very organized about documenting all of the things I found in the archives. I took pictures of almost everything and wrote every detail off of every box and document I used. It was tedious work, but absolutely worth it when it came time to citing and doing references. Dr. Adkins helped me break down my thesis into six chapters. I had to research the UNO website for how the thesis had to be formatted, title page, references, spacing, etc., but that wasn't hard to come by. The entire spring was dedicated to writing the thesis. I sent Dr. Adkins each chapter and he would read/revise and I would fix with his suggestions. I had the whole thing done by March and defended in April (the lines of communication were very slow...make sure everything is done in a timely manner so you're not scrambling when people drag their feet...). As I mentioned before, we set up a Skype session so I could defend my project. You have to submit the thesis to an online data base called ProQuest and then turn in paperwork from your committee to the Office of Graduate Studies so they can officially complete your thesis submission.
Dr. Adkins was a great mentor and he really is an outstanding academic. He was pretty disengaged in the summer class I took last year with him, but I figure that's sort of to be expected in July. He was on sabbatical the entire year I was working on my thesis, which made turn around time on getting things back to me super long. He let me know to expect at least 10 days for a response after I sent him something, so I always planned accordingly. I know he's working on his own research project right now, so I understand the time that goes into that. Otherwise, he was a fantastic mentor and really helped me get my project to the level it needed to be to be considered top writing in political science. To that I am very grateful!
I think this is a great explanation of the planning required, and the departments dedication to motivated student's completing their theses. Thank you as well to Stefani for sharing this experience. If anyone else has any experience with this, please bring it up.
The thesis route was really good for me. I enjoyed the independent researching and working with my committee on it. It's a lot of work, but definitely a good experience if you're wanting pursue your PhD. The process was a bit stressful, but everything worked out well. I defended my thesis to my committee about 2 weeks ago. It's being published through the University and I am officially done with my MS (woo hoo)!
Dr. Adkins was my thesis advisor. Dr. Holloway and Dr. Landow were also on my committee, as was Dr. Scherer (from history, he was my outside representative). I defended my proposal (about 35 pages or so) in December via a Skype call since I am in Texas. I provided a PowerPoint as a guide for the committee and gave a 30min presentation. For the actual defense, we did the same thing, with an updated presentation and PowerPoint for the committee to follow. I talked for about 45min about the actual project and they asked questions and gave me suggestions on what to improve and where to go from with the finished project. Dr. Adkins was great (although he was on sabbatical this year) and really helped me out with direction and ideas. The rest of the committee was helpful, too.
After she wrote the above, I asked her to expound a little bit...
As for my thesis, I had a pretty good idea going into it about what I wanted to do. I used a theory coined by a professor's whose class I took as an undergrad to guide my work. Dr. Adkins helped me choose my topic and narrow my focus a bit. My thesis was an archival case study over presidential accountability, President Johnson and America's involvement in the Six Day War (June 1967). I initially wanted to focus on a variety of foreign conflicts, but Dr. Adkins helped me hone in on a war that has garnered relatively little attention in regards to presidential accountability. I started contacted Dr. Adkins last summer because Dr. Petrow told me he would be my advisor. It was difficult to get a hold of him, and I was even taking one of his classes haha. He did eventually get back to me, but it took quite a bit on my part to get the ball rolling. The thesis takes A LOT of self-motivation and discipline. I just started getting sources together for my literature review and started putting my defense together when Dr. Adkins said my project theme and idea was good to go. The entire first semester, I worked on the proposal and did research. I traveled to the LBJ library in Austin (it's only a 4 hour drive) and spent a few days in the archives gathering all of my documents. This is actually another reason we decided on LBJ for my thesis- proximity for my research. Working full time and trying to travel around the country for documents would have been next to impossible. Dr. Adkins made sure to call me before every trip to the archive so as to prepare me for how to look for things and make sure I was sticking to the plan. He was great about giving me his cell number (which he says he never does) just in case I needed anything. Over the course of the semester, I sent him each part of my thesis proposal to review: the introduction, the lit review, the overview of chapters, the importance of the project, the breakdown of the theory I was using, etc. He made his edits and I fixed things accordingly. In December, I defended my proposal to my committee, which Dr. Adkins helped me set up. He choose my outside rep and we worked together to choose my other two political science reps. The paperwork has to be submitted at least one semester before you graduate and getting everyone on the same page to get that done on time was sort of a hassle...we cut it VERY close to the deadline, but got it done!
After the proposal was done, I got to work on writing, which actually was the easy part. I was very organized about documenting all of the things I found in the archives. I took pictures of almost everything and wrote every detail off of every box and document I used. It was tedious work, but absolutely worth it when it came time to citing and doing references. Dr. Adkins helped me break down my thesis into six chapters. I had to research the UNO website for how the thesis had to be formatted, title page, references, spacing, etc., but that wasn't hard to come by. The entire spring was dedicated to writing the thesis. I sent Dr. Adkins each chapter and he would read/revise and I would fix with his suggestions. I had the whole thing done by March and defended in April (the lines of communication were very slow...make sure everything is done in a timely manner so you're not scrambling when people drag their feet...). As I mentioned before, we set up a Skype session so I could defend my project. You have to submit the thesis to an online data base called ProQuest and then turn in paperwork from your committee to the Office of Graduate Studies so they can officially complete your thesis submission.
Dr. Adkins was a great mentor and he really is an outstanding academic. He was pretty disengaged in the summer class I took last year with him, but I figure that's sort of to be expected in July. He was on sabbatical the entire year I was working on my thesis, which made turn around time on getting things back to me super long. He let me know to expect at least 10 days for a response after I sent him something, so I always planned accordingly. I know he's working on his own research project right now, so I understand the time that goes into that. Otherwise, he was a fantastic mentor and really helped me get my project to the level it needed to be to be considered top writing in political science. To that I am very grateful!
I think this is a great explanation of the planning required, and the departments dedication to motivated student's completing their theses. Thank you as well to Stefani for sharing this experience. If anyone else has any experience with this, please bring it up.
Thursday, April 10, 2014
The Value of a Personality
Recently I was able to attend a function on campus that included students and faculty of various departments, including members of the Political Science department. It was a great experience: I learned great deal about a part of our government I unfortunately know too little about, I identified some new career objectives, and I was able to put faces to the names of professors of classes that I have taken at UNO. Unfortunately I also saw the weak nature of the relationships I built with these previous professors as a distance education student. Where the on campus students' relationships were strong and faces were familiar, I was akin to a visiting student. It means that for the remaining short period I have left at UNO I will work very hard on turning my mere digital presence into a memorable (and hopefully positive) member of the Political Science graduate student body, by using such tools as posting a Blackboard picture, and increasing the frequency with which I email my fellow students and professors.
Chris
Chris
The Writing Center is Streaming Online!
The UNO Writing Center is offering online writing consultations on Thursday mornings during the month of April.
You can:
Ask questions
Get feedback
Organize your thoughts
Expand your ideas
Learn tips and tricks to improve your writing
All from the convenience of your own computer!
In the future, online appointments will be scheduled online - just like our face-to-face appointments - but during this initial phase, appointments can be made only by calling the Writing Center.
To use online consultation, you will need:
A Computer with internet access
Updated Flash Player
Webcam, microphone, and earphones (recommended for video conferencing but not required)
Writing to work on
...And a desire to improve their writing
To schedule an appointment, please call the UNO Writing Center at 402.554.2946
Appointments are available 9:00 - 12:00 on April 17, and April 24.
I got to be the first student participant. The person I worked with (and for April you would work with) is Suzanne, and she was great: patient, asked cogent questions, and provided great feedback. She helped me to strengthen my paper through suggestions for restructuring and developing the weaker parts.
Chris
You can:
Ask questions
Get feedback
Organize your thoughts
Expand your ideas
Learn tips and tricks to improve your writing
All from the convenience of your own computer!
In the future, online appointments will be scheduled online - just like our face-to-face appointments - but during this initial phase, appointments can be made only by calling the Writing Center.
To use online consultation, you will need:
A Computer with internet access
Updated Flash Player
Webcam, microphone, and earphones (recommended for video conferencing but not required)
Writing to work on
...And a desire to improve their writing
To schedule an appointment, please call the UNO Writing Center at 402.554.2946
Appointments are available 9:00 - 12:00 on April 17, and April 24.
I got to be the first student participant. The person I worked with (and for April you would work with) is Suzanne, and she was great: patient, asked cogent questions, and provided great feedback. She helped me to strengthen my paper through suggestions for restructuring and developing the weaker parts.
Chris
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