Greetings, Internet! As some of you may know, I recently successfully defended my dissertation at Princeton University, which means that I have my doctorate in (medieval) History! That’s right, Dr. Val (but not that kind of doctor). And I’d like to take you through the itinerary of that day, because it was a trek. [Featured image: Me, a wheelchair-using woman with dark hair and purple glasses, wearing a black sweater, necklace, and maroon pants; sitting in front of a projector with my dissertation title, “Becoming Poor: Situations of Poverty in the Early Medieval West” behind me. This was taken right after I passed my defense.]

5:30am: Alarm goes off. Commence the morning routine of someone who lives with a spinal cord injury (IYKYK), followed by breakfast, makeup, and frantically packing an extra catheter kit just in case.

9:30am: Leave apartment with boyfriend for Penn Station. My mother was originally planning to drive me, but she and my father ended up stuck in Taiwan due to unforeseen medical circumstances (they are both fine, thank goodness). My boyfriend carried my laptop, in addition to a spare change of clothing in the unlikely (but still possible) event that my bladder didn’t want to cooperate with me.

10:07am: Make the earlier train to Princeton because NJ Transit had a delay. For once, am grateful for NJ Transit delays.

11:30am-ish: Arrive at Princeton Junction and realize that the Dinky (the short two-car train from Princeton Junction to Princeton) is not operating. Instead, realize that there is a shuttle that is about to depart. Cue me wheeling down a ramp and yelling, “WAAAAIIIIIT!” Learned that it is really difficult to wheel down a ramp and wave one’s arms at the same time in a safe manner.

12pm-ish: Arrive on campus, and head straight to Firestone Library to use the restroom. Thank goodness for oodles of wheelchair-friendly restrooms on campus.

12:30pm: Met up with a friend who drove up from DC to see the defense. Got lunch with her and got to catch up for a bit.

2:30pm: Arrive at the defense location to sort out tech/Zoom issues. My outside reader was convinced that his headset did not have an additional microphone, but soon learned that it did, indeed, have said additional microphone. Run out to catheterize before defense time.

3-4:30pm: THE DEFENSE. Contrary to popular belief, there is no snake fight portion. Rather, at least for my department, you give a 20-minute presentation about your dissertation (main idea, some elaboration, etc.), and then your committee, one by one, asks you questions about your research. This is more of a chat than a grilling, at least in my case. Different subfields of history or commitees may have different attitudes (and this could vary by department, or even institution). But for the most part, this was very cordial, and I only had one main issue with one of my chapters. After my outside reader (who, coincidentally, was my undergraduate thesis advisor, and a man I know to ask incisive questions with the best of intentions) began his remarks with, “So how long do I have to tell Val how wonderful her dissertation is?” I knew that it was safe to breathe.

(For those wondering what on earth a dissertation committee is, it’s usually a group of professors, 3-5 depending on the department/institution, some of whom are in your department/home university, and 1-2 of whom are from “outside” universities. Your advisor is on this committee, and they have (I hope) read most of or all of your dissertation and is the one who decides when the dissertation is ready for the defense. The other committee members certainly can read and offer feedback on the dissertation prior to the defense, but for the most part, your advisor is the main person reading your work while it is still a work-in-progress. If you have any questions about the PhD/grad school process, please feel free to leave a comment, and I’ll happily answer your queries in a later post!)

4:30pm: My advisor congratulates me and calls me, “Dr. Piro.” I do my best not to cry, because this was a long ass journey and I barely slept the night before.

5:30pm: After a long shuttle ride (my boyfriend and I may have gotten on the wrong shuttle?), we eventually end up at Princeton Junction. The train we board had experienced an hour delay before it departed its origin station on account of police activity.

6:15pm-ish: The train stops. The doors open at some stop in New Jersey whose name I do not currently recall. The speaker system asks, “Is there a doctor on the train?” My boyfriend turns to me and goes, “Now’s your time.” I swear, I have never been on a mass transit anything and heard that announcement. That said, the person who needed the doctor was having chest pains and I would have been completely unhelpful there.

7:15pm: The train is finally moving! In that time, my boyfriend and I chatted with several people who were stuck on the train car with us. One of them was about to miss his shift at an Amazon warehouse and worried that he would get fired. Another person was supposed to meet her friends, but had been on the train since its station of origin, and was now two hours late. Others on the train simply laughed at their predicament and chalked it up to another day of taking NJ Transit.

8pm-ish: At last! Penn Station! My boyfriend and I are so very hungry. We book it back to our apartment (oh, right, he moved in at the end of February 2024! Much has happened!), drop off my laptop, and run to one of the closest restaurants where we know we can walk-in on a Wednesday night, get some delicious noms and eat two baskets of bread.

10pm: Home! Fed! Newly-PhDed!

It hasn’t sunk in yet, and probably won’t until the diploma shows up at my door. I will most likely not attend my commencement, because I usually don’t go to commencements (for real, a BA and three masters degrees later, and no commencement, although I have gone to one diploma ceremony). There is a time for reflections on the PhD process, how I felt incredibly stressed and like I wasn’t getting nearly enough work done even when I was actively researching and working, how it’s pretty much impossible to go through this process without comparing yourself to your colleagues, and how by the end it feels like you’re crawling, nay, dragging yourself uphill and by your fingernails, towards the finish line. A PhD program is, as my outside reader once put it, “a long gestation.” The dissertation was birthed and defended, and I’m not sure yet whether or not I should turn it into a book, or break it up into articles, or ignore it completely and let it sit happily unaltered on ProQuest. Those are questions for later. For now, victory!

Thanks so much for reading!

Virtual hugs,

Val