Steve's ABD Completion Update

As I announced nearly a year ago, I decided to finish my doctoral work through the Doctor of Business Administration ABD completion program at Baker College rather than reapply to the University of the Cumberlands, where I had run out of time.

I've been a little less slow this time around (still slow, just a little less so!) and finally today got through my proposal defense. My committee has a few very minor edits, but nothing onerous. So three chapters are essentially done, two to go!

 

I'm researching the academic preferences of prospective university students in Nigeria.

 

Congratulations! That's a huge step. I can't wait to hear what comes of your research.

 

You've correctly anticipated one of my main reasons, though! And by the end of this century it will be even more lopsided: India and China are projected to see population decreases, but Nigeria will become the most populated country on Earth, and Lagos, already a megacity, may end up being the largest city in the world.

 

I didn't know this. That's cool info.

I just looked up languages of Nigeria on Wikipedia and that led me to taking a listen to some Nigerian Pidgin on YouTube and it gave me goosebumps. It sounds uncannily similar to Jamaican Patwa and Belize Kriol! I could even recognize some the syntactical features and some of the words of non-English origin due to the similarities. I need to learn more about the historical connection between Nigeria and the Caribbean creoles because my mind is genuinely blown!

Looks like I'm staying up all night reading Wikipedia... again.

 

Oh, thanks for this! A new favorite!

 

So, in the time since I've written the above, I got my proposal to the point where it could be submitted to IRB... but, then my chair was replaced for the second time, and the new one basically said, "oh, no, no, no, you should change everything," and wanted me essentially to start over. Then it came out that Baker College has annoyed the U.S. Department of Education. So I thought that if I were going to revise my whole proposal anyway, I may as well reconsider where, since there are more universities offering ABD completion programs than even two years ago.

Anyway, I made a spreadsheet with a bunch of schools on it, and all that, but the short version is that I had a great conversation with the guy who runs the ABD completion program at Manhattanville College in New York, and when he said they only have one start date per year and theirs would be in two weeks, I scrambled to get transcripts and recommendations and so forth in, and made it under the wire, and started the initial online residency today.

They're financially stable, and the program director is willing to be my chair and said he doesn't plan to go anywhere. I'll have to tighten my first three chapters up a little, but I won't have to redo them. And it's a 20 credit program that's not exactly free, but not that expensive either. And they're rebranding as Manhattanville University this year, so I won't get side-eye from Europeans about the name.

I did get two good things out of my time at Baker College, though. One is that I have a proposal draft, which I didn't when I got there. The other is that since their program was a DBA, I ended up with 18 doctoral level credits coded as Business Administration, so I'm academically qualified to design and teach business courses.

 

Wow! I was concerned after reading the Baker thread, but it looks like you'll be better off in the end. Glad to hear it, and good luck!

 

If I have any strength in this world, it's a willingness to pivot.