I've already expressed my feelings to Capella University, so this should be nothing new to them. In my previous post, I talked about my new, third mentor and her benefit to me in making progress. One of the members of my committee, whose class I had taken, took it upon themselves to block my every attempt at choosing a topic. Their objection was always "What's the problem?" even though I expressly stated what the problem was that I was focusing on. However, their focus seemed myopic to me while mine seemed too broad to them, I'm sure.
As an aside, this person was one of the old guard in the IDOL department. This group felt, in my opinion, that the rest of the University didn't know what they were doing and instead went their own way in designing the process of reporting on research. They changed the topic approval process completely three times during the course of my development. All the training we received as the three Colloquia we were required to attend was of no use as the principles we were taught were rejected by this group.
Back to topic, my second mentor had even sent one of my attempts to a former President of the University for his review. He found it acceptable. My committee member did not. At one point they even went so far as to impugn my character, that I was not fit to receive a PhD. After two and a half years of coursework with a 3.92 GPA and passing the Comprehensive Exam on the first try, their attitude more than puzzled me. It offended me.
And even with the new (third) mentor, we struggled with this committee member for another year trying to get their approval on the topic. Finally, my mentor called the committee member up and asked them point blank what they were looking for. What they came up with, in my opinion, was a milquetoast, pointless topic on "How Instructional Designers produce instructional materials for technical training." Yeah, that's right, they suckered me into a qualitative research project. This was one of the old guard's pet peeves, that not enough qualitative research was being done in IDOL, in their opinion.
I had a year and a half left to complete the research, do the analysis, and write the dissertation. My mentor was a champ. I was able to interview seven ID's and transcribe their responses to my questions. Now, you have to understand, another of the old guard's pet peeves was ADDIE. It's five stages of the ID process: Analysis, Design, Development, Implementation, and Evaluation. All five of the military services use it, with some modification, but the trunk of the tree is the same in each. Imagine my surprise when all seven of my interviewees reported that they use ADDIE in their development.
I was able to complete the first three chapters of the five required for the dissertation by the end of the year. I just had to perform the analysis, report on it in the fourth chapter, and then write the conclusions in the fifth. Then my mentor got sick. Really sick. Cancer. They had to quit. On top of that, I missed a milestone. The University had put me on scholarship, but when I missed the milestone, they had to rescind it. I had reached my limit on student loans and didn't have the money to continue on my own (I had been unemployed twice during this time).
The University gave me a new mentor, but I had run out of time, money, and energy. I was burned out. So in July 2016, I admitted defeat (gosh, it hurts just to write this), and gave up my lifelong dream of getting a PhD. I accepted the consolation of an MS in Instructional Design. I have the paper to certify my ability and training in the field.
Not that it has made much difference. I spent one year as a volunteer in a homeless shelter, another as a door greeter at Sam's Club, 9 months as a freight dispatcher for a trucking company (I earned a whopping $440 in commissions), and finally 6 months as a Consultative Sales Associate in the Hardware department at Sears, before they closed the store. I've been waiting 5 weeks for my unemployment to kick in only to find out that one of my responses in the initial claim is preventing it from being processed properly. Just go ahead and TRY getting hold of them now. I spent four hours doing that today, but the phone system was so overloaded it kept cutting me off.
I'm not ... I was going to say I'm not worried, that God is my supplier. And He has been. We have food and clothing. Jesus said to be content with this. But I have to admit, with unemployment and the pandemic lock down, I have serious trouble getting to sleep at night. Right now my wife is calling me to bed at 1 a.m. I guess I should get undressed and at least lie down. Good night, all.
