It's Dr. Tracy L. Johnson now...

I have a PhD!

On Friday May 13 I submitted my dissertation. It is currently 404 pages (the final version will be a little longer). It was especially busy and pretty much non-stop working on finishing the analysis and doing almost all of the writing the past several months, and it really ramped up the last 6 weeks. The last week of writing was super intense and included some 16 hour work days.

Then there was the requisite all-nighter the last day/night/day to finish it off. I always knew that last night would be an all-nighter. What I did not expect was that I would not be working on it by myself in the wee hours, but Sarah stayed up all night with me and was such a huge help with making figures and the table of contents and moreover keeping me together during very stressful times. Here is the image from that night:

It was really amazing to go from something like this (the outline of my concluding chapter)...

...to this (the chapter based on the above half-page of notes turned out to be 70 pages):

So, 5.5 years of grad school (1.5 for the masters, 4 towards the PhD), 2 years working on my dissertation study, a lot of late nights, one all-nighter, and one bottle of mountain dew later...it was submitted on May 13. I'm quite pleased with how it turned out and how grounded it is in theory and how much of a synthesis it is of what I've learned in grad school both through my coursework as well as through my experiences teaching in the elementary ed program and supervising student teachers. Along the way I wrote a new coding protocol and developed a new methodology. And, it is pretty darn good.

The past 3 weeks while my committee has been reading my book (as I explained it to Ainsleigh and Rippy) have been much less intense but still stressful. I took several days off for the first time in I don't even know how long. Then I had to put together a presentation which was supposed to present my study in 30 minutes. Here is that equation:

2 years > 30 minutes

And, I had to talk my advisor into giving me 30 minutes. Originally she said 20. It was fairly painful to have to leave so much out that I wanted to talk about, but finally I got it down to 30 minutes. My presentation and defense was this Friday, June 3. Pre-defense flowers from Tracy K kept me company as I did the final prep Thursday night.


One thing I was very much looking forward to about my defense was seeing my old student teaching supervisor again, who was working on her PhD at Penn State at the time I was there. Now she is on faculty at Ohio State (did you hear about their football coach?) and on my committee. Thus far she has participated in meetings remotely via video conferencing so this was a real treat to see her again after 10 years. We were able to go to breakfast together ahead of time. Also one of my best friends Bethany, who grew up around the corner from me and I've know literally forever, drove down with her son Ethan. There were also a few classmates and Austin and Sarah at my defense. After my presentation they all got kicked out and my committee asked me questions and we talked about my dissertation for an hour. Towards the end there was this great moment where one of the professors said that my dissertation "was just awesome" and said "I wish everyone would do data analysis like this." Then another professor said, "I wish everyone was Tracy."

After another 20 minutes of talking about (fairy minor) revisions that I will make to the final version, I was done! We had some help getting the kids over so that they were there when I finished. Ainsleigh sang an original song for me that repeated this verse:

Graduation Mommy

I love you

Graduation Mommy

You are done

Then we went to lunch at The Carolin Inn with Sarah, Bethany and Ethan, and two of the professors on my committee. Then it was time to bring Belinda back to her hotel so she could head to the airport. Austin and Sarah and Ainsleigh went to set up for that evening's party (which I still knew essentially nothing about) and Bethany and I brought the boys home for a quick nap. Then just after 5pm Bethany was allowed to tell me that the party was at the clubhouse in our neighborhood, which actually I have never even seen the inside of. It looked fabulous with all that Carolina blue!

My party hosts

The set up

Sarah did the decorations--there were lots of mathematics symbols and equations on the windows, and even better were the *hysterical* quotations on the walls. She took quotes out of my dissertation and re-wrote parts of them to say that my dissertation was awesome. There were even a few from people whose work I challenged that said they were worried I was going to steal the spotlight from them and their lackluster work. And then there were the quotes from Ripken, Ainsleigh, the goo goo dolls, and President Bartlet (and yes, even the ghost of Jack Dawson). Here is my friend Megan and I with two of the quotations. Bartlet is saying I should be Secretary of Education. Heather Hill at Harvard is saying she's not really all that.

The spread--Carolina graduation calls for Carolina BBQ! The Q Shack did a great job with the catering.

Gorgeous flowers from our friends Becky, Rachel, and Kate at Tre Bella (always the best choice for local flowers and weddings!)

My geeky cake that Sarah made--complete with my initials and exponential growth.

Geeky + Symbolic = Perfect

Sarah, Miss Abby Parcell, and Alisa.

My advisor, Olly

Classmates Jenn, Brandon, and Dwight

The Prietos, Olsens, Jones, and Kendra

Ainsleigh's teacher (and my former student) Ms. Chiu. Ainsleigh just drooled over her attention all night. And Samantha was very sweet to oblige. Note who Ainsleigh is hugging.

The Prietos

Some of the YW. Jeanette and Kendra

Morgane (or, as Rippy says, "Organ").

We waited a few minutes too long to take a family pic. Rippy was melting down (note the boots). Ainsleigh also wasn't so interested.

Cake helps

What to do with all the leftover cake?

Every time I looked at Ainsleigh that day I thought about how this now big girl was a little baby when I started grad school:

It was really so nice to have everyone there, including some people I haven't seen in quite some time. There were people from church, UNC, and the school at which I used to teach.

And then there was the after party. At 9pm Sarah and Bethany and I headed to mystery location #2, which turned out to be the free expression tunnel at NC State. Always Carolina t-shirts are in style, especially on someone else's campus. Same with spray paint cans.

Apparently level of education and delinquent behavior are not correlated, after all, seeings as both perpetrators have PhDs.

Spray paint + stencils may have led to this...

...and this...

...and even this.

But we just wanted to make a few things clear...

After all, I doubled my initials!

This may have also happened. All in good fun.

Finally, a picture with Bethany!

This was a fabulous way to announce my new title to the world (or at least the people walking under the railroad tracks). Always I'm grateful for Sarah being more adventurous than I would be on my own, because it was such a fun night.

The next morning we made a short visit to the pond and got a few more pictures with Aunt Bethany and Ethan--who Rippy calls "Even."

Always in the boots these days

It was fabulous to have Bethany travel down for my defense and party and see her and Ethan, who has the best thick curly hair right now. We will see her one more time in July for a quick trip to State College.

So, that's the update from Dr. Tracy. Thanks to everyone who made it a special day for me. It's not a stretch to say that I will always remember it.