I passed my Dissertation Proposal Defense!
Hello, my friend.
I just wanted to let you know that I am now a PhD Candidate, which means I am now free to begin conducting my own qualitative research on intercultural communication competence!
I'll be honest, I would not want to go the process of doing doctoral work again (over these last 10 years, I have thought about dropping out more times than I can count), but I am SO glad to be HERE! Why? Because the process, the professors, and the perseverance have given me a skill set that I will be able to use the rest of my life.
To be sure, I STILL have hundreds of hours of work to do: I must conduct, transcribe, micro-analyze, and interpret, interviews of 30-50 interculturally competent people so that I can develop a unified, grounded, theoretical explanation of the processes through which people go to develop intercultural communication competence. So, as you can see, I still have some heavy lifting to do.
Nevertheless, I am pausing to celebrate this milestone. This rigorous process of learning how to do extensive and original research for a Doctor of Philosophy (PhD) degree has made me a stronger thinker, a better man, and, I hope, a sharper instrument for the flourishing of humanity.
Thank you all for your continued support.
Tonight, I am taking my wife out on a date to thank her because I would not have been able to do ANY of this without her unwavering sacrifice and support.
Warmly,
Manny Scott
PhD Candidate