​Transcript: Jason’s experience with Grad Coach

I’m Jason Powell, and I just completed a doctorate in business administration with a focus in applied computer science from National University. So in doctoral training or practice, you’re left to your own devices a lot. There’s no solid ground. There’s no direction that you’re given or path to follow. You’re on your own.

Having these challenges made me feel that I needed some external source of truth — some external litmus test that I could lean on for proper direction. While you have a supervisor, while you have a committee that maybe you can lean on or maybe you can’t, still having that objective third party look in at your work and tell you what it is that you need to do or how it is that you need to approach a certain problem is invaluable. And it can help you skip a whole lot of hard lessons learned. So for me, Grad Coach filled that role perfectly and helped me get through a lot of hurdles — through frustration, through uncertainty, through the lack of support I may have been getting from various members of my team. Grad Coach came in and helped fill that void with constructive feedback.

I decided to join Grad Coach because I knew that no matter how hard I worked solo on a problem, it would not be as developed or as thorough as it would be with multiple eyes and multiple perspectives. And I knew that Grad Coach, with the presence they had online and with many of the videos I’ve watched providing feedback and instruction to doctoral candidates, would be a good avenue or direction for me to go. When I started coordinating with them, the process was fairly seamless. It was easy for me to do. The cost was fair — based on what I’d seen in the market, there was value. And the feedback that I’ve gotten probably shaved at least a year off my dissertation work.

Working with Grad Coach helped me to focus in on the problem areas and create an overall framework and structure to build from. When you first start out on your dissertation process, you’re basically staring in front of a blank piece of paper and a world full of knowledge. And there’s not a whole lot of reliable instruction on how to bring that world of knowledge into an understandable structure with a framework and an actual purpose. Using Grad Coach, I was able to bounce ideas off Dr. E and get an idea of how I should approach various issues within those frameworks and within that structure of a dissertation. Having that outline to work from and to grow helped tremendously with being able to create a finished product and a published dissertation.

My favorite thing about working with Grad Coach was the energy my coach brought to those meetings. Usually, by the time I get those meetings set, I’m frustrated. I’m at my wit’s end with whatever challenge I’m facing. And Dr. E brought a positive persona. He made the environment more supportive for creative thinking, so that the problems became easier to solve, because you’re getting good feedback from somebody who’s immensely positive. And that helps you to break through some plateaus when you need to.

When you look at the big problems, what you find is when you can find support in anyone else — whether or not that’s a coaching service, whether or not that’s a good friend, whether or not that’s a drinking buddy — when you approach problems together with someone else, it eases the burden. It gives you an extra shoulder to share the load. And that is in itself invaluable. That provides a real service that is hard to put a price tag on. There’s people, especially veterans, that commit suicide every day, and a single phone call could have prevented that. So I feel like a coaching service, especially one that’s competent in the area that you’re really challenged by, does a great deal to help you carry the burden.

I wish I had signed up with Grad Coach earlier because during the formation of my topic and my research questions, it would have been really helpful to have somebody who had doctoral experience and had experience digging through problem sets and issues to pick a really good topic. The topic I picked worked out to be really good — fortunately, I think that was more luck than skill. But if I had joined Grad Coach earlier, it really would have helped set my research on a more efficient path.

I would recommend Grad Coach to anyone who’s interested in pursuing a doctoral degree anywhere, because I feel like the support they provide is extremely valuable in multiple ways that we really can’t break down here. But without them, you could be sure that you’re going to spend a lot more time grinding on serious problems. I’ll work through a problem as hard as I can for as long as I can. But even if I solve the problem, having the feedback to know that I’ve solved it in a positive and good way is important. So I could continue to grind down a path in the wrong direction for months and then realize at the end that I have to start over again. Or I could seek out expert advice and get the guidance I need to set me back on the right track.

For anyone thinking about joining Grad Coach, I would say it’s a great idea. If you go it alone, if you tackle this process by yourself, you’ll probably be successful in enough time. But if you go with Grad Coach, they’re going to help put you on a direct path. It’s going to get you from where you are to your goal the quickest possible way. And that’s what I would say about it. Thank you.