Officially ABD

You are probably wondering what the heck "ABD" is, right? Well that s my new "title" along with Ph.D. Candidate. I have officially passed my proposal defense (the meeting where I present my idea, research questions, method). I have "promoted" to Ph.D. Candidate from Ph.D. Student.

So, ABD means "all but dissertation". All coursework for the doctor of philosophy degree has been completed, I have passed my comprehensive exams and everyone on my committee believes I am ready (and prepared) to move on to the data collection phase. I want to thank you (those few that read this) for your patience and understanding with my lack of posts over the last 2 years. It has been very stressful and the time is often not there to even take 5 minutes to write down ideas or share pictures.

Currently I am working to finalize my survey (I chose survey over interviews because I have no desire to transcribe hours upon hours of recorded interviews and then code them and find meanings) and submit it for IRB (Institutional Review Board) approval. Once approved, I am cleared to collect data for my dissertation.

In case you are wondering, my dissertation is over what motivations people have to attend college football games with an RV. My research areas are in sport tourism, marketing and intercollegiate athletics. There is very little information out there on "who" the people are that travel to college sporting events with an RV. So to collect data, I will be doing paper and pencil surveys to those in the RV parking designated areas on college campuses on game weekends. Yes, I will be coming to TAMU and I am so excited to see Kyle Field in person. (squeal!!)

If all goes well, I will have collected all my data by end of October or the beginning of November at the very latest. I will then only have chapters 4 and 5 left to write and should have that completed sometime in December. The goal is to defend my dissertation in late February but no later than the first week of March. Once I defend (and my committee tells me I passed, which happens the same day as the defense) then I am a "Dr." but will not actually graduate until May.

So that is basically my next few months in a nutshell. Anyone want to come to Knoxville and help me? :)

While I have completed and "checked-off" so many things, I still have a lot to do.