I recently wrapped up Year Two of my doctoral work. There are seven semesters of coursework and two set aside for dissertation, so I'm entering the home stretch. My last semester of regular reading and assignments begins next week. This last class is all about qualitative research. I'm not planning to use qualitative methods for my own project, but it is unlikely that my doctoral study will be the last work I do in the field of education. The deeper I go with my research, the more questions I have that I would like to try to answer at some point. Qualitative methods may serve me well in the future.

I have four new tomes for this final semester:

• Doing Qualitative Research in Educational Settings by J. Amos Hatch
• "Stretching" Exercises for Qualitative Researchers, 2nd ed. by Valerie J. Janesick
• Qualitative Interviewing: The Art of hearing Data, 2nd ed. by Herbert and Irene Rubin
• Qualitative Research in Practice: Examples for Discussion and Analysis by Sharan B. Merriam and Associates

I'm looking forward to this final semester of coursework for a variety of reasons. While I doubt that this will be the last class I ever take, I am looking forward to having my Sundays back for pursuits other than scholarly reading and writing papers. Reaching this point makes finishing the whole degree program feel like a reality---by the end of April, there will be one less hoop to manage. I "just" have to refine the pieces of my dissertation and defend my work. I can smell the letters "EdD" after my name. It's a good smell.

But first, there is one more semester of assignments, discussion posts, and Sundays to calendar. One more semester of papers and research to juggle along with the household business and day-to-day efforts at work. I've made it through six. I can do one more.

Labels: EdD