Are you ABD? Why I dropped out of Doctoral School

It's not that I wasn't up to the task. Rather, it's the fact that I WAS.

I enjoy learning. I thrive on it, in fact. This innate desire was rewarded with a 4.0 GPA. I followed the course Doctoral Coursebook diligently. I took the required courses and completed several research projects and even had a few resulting articles get published. So why, after completing all but 1 course did I drop out?

Well, yes, there was the fact of a baby on the way and my wife and soon to be son needing me. But just as much a cause of my 'leaving University'-to put it as a Briton might-was my nagging suspicion that I was a player in a GAME where the rules are made up by those who already have their PhD's and who make assumptions about those of us who don't (yet).

The overriding assumption seemed to be: All (doctoral) students are lazy and don't yet know what work is or what it means to be a "Dr." Therefore, We must create obstacles for them to "challenge" their sincerity.

Yes, I certainly witnessed those who were "lazy", those who didn't do the readings and managed to "wing" it. The irony of the system created by the Advisors (the one's with the erroneous assumptions) is that the lazy one's got their PhD's and EdD's but those who were sincere and hard working dropped out because the lazy one's treated the process as a game to begin with.

Unfortunate, really. If you have true desire, intellectual capacity, imagination, creativity and motivation it is likely that achieving a degree beyond a Master's degree is lower for you because the process to earn anything more is so inauthentic and contrived that you'll be turned off and set your sites, efforts, interests, and motivations on new projects (as I have).

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