The Scholar's Survival Manual: A Road Map for Students, Faculty, and Administrators

3. Getting Done (#96–112)

85 A. Fundamentals 96 Moses and the Promised Land MosesdidnotmakeitintothePromisedLand,butitisbetterthatyouget done, file your dissertation, and get a suitable academic or nonacademic position or pursue your other goals. If you plan to have an academic job in the fall, you really need to be almost done by mid-summer, so you can have your oral defense. Looking for a job is demanding. A year early, you have the golden opportunity to make the big push on your dissertation so that you have something to show for yourself when people who are interested in you ask to see some of your dissertation. That is the latest time to go into high gear. (No painting your apartment, no putting in a new kitchen or bathroom, no unfocused activity.) 97 Brilliant Ideas Are Already in What You Have Drafted Most writing is done under the regime of a deadline, sometimes selfimposed . Losing sight of your objective is a serious problem. Rarely do you have a revelation that is so new, so important, that you should alter your current plans, plans I hope you have already written down early on in a project. It is not that the revelation cannot suggest new avenues for work. But rather than beginning anew, you need to incorporate those new insights into your current plan. This is both practical and intellectual . Practically, you have to get done. Intellectually, you have worked Getting Done (#96–112) three 86 The Scholar’s Survival Manual very hard so far and it is likely that the new ideas are already present in what you have written (that is my awful experience, my “brilliant” new idea already there seven or eight pages away, having been written down two months ago). Getting done matters. In fact, getting done is the only thing that matters. I am not counseling doing a slipshod job. But for most of us, doing it “just right” is the royal road to not getting done at all. Or as one of my friends was told by her advisor, you can put that in your second book. Now is the time to finish the first one. Ofcourse,ifyouhavenotwrittenaword,andonlyareplanning,you can be rather more open to insights and new ideas. But you have to start writing, probably should have yesterday, and so get to work. My greatest discovery is how little is new under my sun, how much I have already incorporated into what I have written already. 98 Working Hard· Working hard and sincerely on a project may not produce firstrate work. It is likely to produce good work. But not always.· Your intentions and commitments to your projects will show, most of the time.· There will be people who are able to do first-rate work but who do not work very hard. And there are people who do first-rate work and work reasonably hard.· Most of the world is concerned with results. They might well care for your well-being. But in the end, what counts is the work you do, and the quality of that work. (For people with limited abilities, there are sheltered places of employment where their limitations are taken into account. Still, they must perform.)· You are in a competitive world. If you do not do the first-rate work, perhaps someone else will–and their performance will set the standard. Some people do fine work consistently. They cannot help but do it.· My job as your teacher is very different than if you were my son or daughter. One’s children need love and support, although it also helps to be realistic about what they can do. As a teacher, I am trying to make you more capable, give you a sense of real Getting Done (#96–112) 87 challenges, and grade you as the world expects. It is a disservice to tell you the work is terrific, if it really is not even very strong.· In general, the world expects you to be reliable, neat, orderly, trustworthy, and honest. They really do expect that there be no spelling errors, that grammar be OK, that sentences follow from each other. Neatness counts. 99 Catching Up and Getting Down to Writing You can get back to writing even if you are doing something else worthwhile just now. In 2003, my book Doing Mathematics came out. It was for me a tour deforce,andIwasexhausted.Iwasencouragedtopublicizethework,and I did write a summary article...