Dissertation prospectus

I’ve attached a copy of my dissertation prospectus, which is a general overview of my dissertation proposal. It’s just a quick two-page overview of my dissertation topic. I haven’t spent much time on this blog describing what my research questions are, data sources, methods, or policy relevance of my study.

So, in the next few posts I’ll try making more of an effort of describing why this research interests me, why it matters in the “big picture,” and how it can potentially add value to what we know within this small little world of higher ed policy.

Download file Hillman_Prospectus (pdf). Click again on next page.

Data adventures

In the world of research, there are few tasks more glamorous than digging for data.  If the “d” word hasn’t put you to sleep yet, read on.  Seriously, the hunt for data is just like an Indiana Jones adventure.  Oh yeah, I mean action, adventure, the whole shabang.  Well, maybe there’s not quite as much punching, daredevil moves, car chases, wild animals, or exotic exploits…but other than that it’s pretty much the same thing.  Yeah, um, at least I tell myself that so it makes the research a bit more fun!

Over the past year I’ve been on a hunt for state-level data on higher ed finance, college participation, and economic indicators.  I’ve explored the depths of the world wide web, emailed and called people in far away lands, and have devoted countless hours staring at the depths of my computer monitor’s soul.  If this isn’t what makes for an Indiana Jones adventure, then I don’t know what does.  Are you buying it?  Can you see the movie now?  Indiana Jones and the Search for the Lost Data File.  Blockbuster hit written all over it!  Oh  yeah. 

Ok, I digress.  I do have a point to this blog.  I want to share an awesome data resource with folks who might be on similar “data hunts.”  It’s not easy hunting down the right info from the most legitimate source, so here’s a link provided by Lexis Nexis statistical data center.  If you have access to the LN site, you can dig around here and get state-level data ranging from things like new housing starts, number of drug arrests per capita, bankruptcies, amount of protein in the food supply,  air quality index, unemployment rates, control of political parties, election results…and of course education data.  The list goes on and on.  If you’re a researcher interested in state-level economic, education, political, social, or environmental data this should be the first stop on your research journey.  I wish I had known about it sooner!

Oh yeah, and you can even print out charts and graphs like the ones below:

Conference presentation

Next week, I’ll be down in Florida for the annual Association for the Study of Higher Education (here) research conference.  I’ve only been to the ASHE conference one other time, so I’m looking forward to round two and seeing some interesting presentations.  Last year, I presented some preliminary research I’ve done on tuition discouting practices at public colleges. After getting some positive feedback from folks at the conference, I decided to pursue this line of research for my dissertation. If you want to check out that 2007 presentation, you can click here (it’s a powerpoint file).

This year…

Dissertation abstracts

A good place to start looking for dissertation ideas, or to simply see what a disseration “looks like,” I found this site to be really helpful. If you look at the middle left side, there’s a link that says “connect to your ProQuest database” – you should be able to get on through this link if you have a subscription. Once you’re in the system, you can search for dissertations by keyword, title, author, advisor’s name, date, university, etc. etc. It’s a great place to start your dissertation search and get your feet wet with the entire process/writing style. If you’re lucky, you might even find a dissertation that has a really solid lit review section (or at least bibliography) to help you find out more about your own topic.

How can this be fun?

When thinking about my research, I keep reminding myself that it has to be relevant and it has to be interesting. And I don’t mean relevant and interesting to me…it has to be relevant and interesting to other people outside of my field. Better yet, my research would have real-world implications that people could use in practice. The last thing I want is to conduct a year or two worth of research, only to have it sit on a shelf somewhere to collect dust. I’d hate for my dissertation to be full of philosophical mumbo jumbo that only academics can understand, and I’d hate it even more if my work puts someone to sleep after reading the first few pages. These are my biggest fears as a researcher — I’m afraid of becoming so detached from the “real world” that all my work means nothing to the average Joe.

Idea for this site

I’ve been thinking about starting a blog to document some of the good, bad, and ugly moments of dissertation writing.  I’m not entirely sure how often I’ll be posting, but I hope to do so every now and again.  I’ve started the first chapter (the intro) and it turns out that this is going to be a lot tougher than I had thought!  After reading/writing for a few hours at a time, I find myself wanting a little break.  I’ll surf the web, get on facebook or myspace, or play a quick computer game.  That’s fun and all, but I feel guilty taking those breaks…so I’m going to try using my break time in a more productive way by writing on this blog.  We’ll see how it goes, but I might as well give it a shot.