Speaking the Unspoken: Lessons Learned from an ABD Student

When my advisor asked if I’d be interested in a research assistantship for the Graduate College, I didn’t dither over the details. Yes, I was interested. I was finishing up the third year of my PhD studies in American Literature at Western Michigan University, caught in a frenetic cycle of grading papers and studying for qualifying exams. I felt quite disposed just then to swap next year’s teaching for a research and writing post.

My new role involved building online content for a Graduate College initiative called COMPASS, an acronym for “Centering on Mentorship, Professionalization, and Student Success.” Our dean, Christine Byrd-Jacobs, wanted to create a dedicated space where students could go for answers and advice about common grad school questions. In particular, she wanted to highlight unspoken rules—the so-called “hidden curriculum” of grad school. The rationale went: Why should students have to learn what to bring to a conference by NOT bringing it to a conference?

I’m perfect for this role, I thought. I’d already spent three years amassing mistakes—some only cringeworthy, others downright painful. I have hard-knocked wisdom to impart.

Leaning into the metaphor, I came up with a logo featuring eight COMPASS points to cover the grad school 360, from mentorship to professional development and community engagement. I then researched a list of topics relating to each point, consulting my advisor, Scott Slawinski (who served as the project’s faculty fellow), news sources, books, reputable websites, and peer-reviewed journal articles.

Surprising Revelations

What I discovered was, in many ways, distressing. I had made more mistakes than I realized— not just embarrassing ones, either; they were costly.

The first topic, Mentorship, showed that I could have (and should have!) recruited a whole team of mentors to help guide me from the start: offering support, sharing resources and feedback, suggesting professional opportunities, helping build my network, and providing other welcome assistance (Ballantine & Jolly-Ballantine, 2024). No matter how supportive one’s advisor is, a single person cannot fulfill all those needs, according to my sources (Lunsford & Baker, 2017).

Each successive research dive uncovered more missed opportunities. If I had maintained an Individual Development Plan (IDP) from the start, I might’ve seen that my second year yielded little for my CV beyond good grades and another year of teaching experience. Why didn’t I attend more conferences that year, or apply for this award, or that one? Or, for that matter, join a committee? Actually, I do know why. I was too focused on the paper, the reading, the class of the moment. I didn’t have the macro view that an IDP could have given (Chang et al., 2021).

When I compiled the teaching section of COMPASS, I recognized many classroom situations I could have handled differently—with likely better results. I often clam up in groups, so when I teach, I always try to honor my quiet students’ right to remain quiet. The articles I consulted, however, emphasized a strong link between participating in discussions and developing critical thinking skills (Howard, 2019). I should have done more to try to draw out those students, I realized. And I absolutely could have improved the class flow if I had followed the lesson plan strategies I discovered.

Some articles offered validation, too. For example, my advisor delivered sober guidance about how and when to study for my exams (advice I followed), and the research (Rogers et al., 2024) and my own experience as a test-taker supported his cautious approach. Accordingly, the COMPASS section on Academic Support advises prepping for exams at least a year in advance and parceling the material into weekly goals. If I hadn’t done that and created detailed study sheets for myself, I doubt I would have passed.

The advice about working with editors, I discovered, also fully corroborated my own experience. What not to do and say had been etched, diamond-tipped, on my memory ever since my first awkward exchanges with editors while freelancing. It informed my emails with editors during my PhD program, as well as the COMPASS resources I wrote.

Building Awareness

Now I’m an ABD student in my fifth year, still working for WMU’s Graduate College as I finish my dissertation. Our COMPASS site is online and available, but we need to figure out ways to get people to use it more. Essentially, my job this year involves convincing new students that foresight has an edge over hindsight when it comes to graduate study. What they don’t know now can and likely will hamper their ability to succeed in their program and beyond. To help build student awareness, we also need to engage faculty and graduate directors to promote our resources.

We’ve recently begun compiling and distributing marketing materials, including COMPASS brochures, flyers, and slide shows. Our Marketing and Strategic Communications department issued a COMPASS press release, and we’re busy collaborating with the Teaching and Learning unit to produce a promo video for orientation events. I’m hoping once students see their colleagues talking about COMPASS, they’ll want to check it out. Dr. Byrd-Jacobs also wants to explore strategies for developing badges or certificates of completion to incentivize students to use COMPASS resources.

My assistantship ends in May 2026, and I think about what will happen to COMPASS after I’m gone. Who will keep the content updated? How will we be able to assess whether it’s helpful and effective? But the reality is: “we” won’t. Before long, I’ll swap my ABD status for a diploma and then swerve off in a new direction, the job search. The “Career Preparation” section of COMPASS offers advice about coping with “graduation grief”—how to let go after you’ve been invested so intently for so long (Guarnera, 2017). Advice I am prepared to follow.

Interested in learning more about COMPASS? Reach out to:
Ellyn Ruhlmann, doctoral candidate
ellyn.c.ruhlmann@wmich.edu

or

Christine Byrd-Jacobs
Dean of Graduate Studies
christine.byrd@wmich.edu