The Ph.Me
A 4-Year Independent Research Project
and Quest for Personal Mastery
What is a Ph.Me?
A Ph.D. is rigorous, prestigious, and valuable, but it's not for everyone. As alternative education continues to gain prominence, there are various alternative education programs to help job seekers gain skills quickly. But there has yet to be a suitable alternative to the traditional Ph.D. program.
Enter the Ph.Me, a 4-year independent research project and personal quest to master a specific set of skills. If the goal of the Ph.D. is to make a substantial contribution to society's knowledge, the goal of the Ph.Me Project is to make information clear, actionable, and widely available.
Tenets of a Ph.Me Project
The Project Focus
Identity-Based Conflict
As technology advances, a human connection crisis is growing. We don't feel seen. We don't feel heard. We struggle to deeply understand and empathize with others.
The root cause of most conflict isn't resources, it's identity. Who I think I am is clashing with who I think you are. The actions or assertions of another is threatening my values, beliefs, and morals, making me fearful and defensive. Until I feel heard and understood I refuse to consider another point of view.
Stages of the Ph.Me Project
Literature Review
Candidates studies all the prominent research in their field. Pull from a wide variety of sources including peer-reviewed journals, published books, online news publications, podcasts, and lectures. The deliverable for this stage inclides well researched, actionable content in the form of either articles, videos or podcast episodes. I'll be publishing articles to Medium.
Practioner
Typical doctorate programs require a few classes, and time teaching undergraduate students. In lieu of taking classes, Ph.Me candidates will apprentice under current experts for weeks or months at a time, and shadow practitioners from across industries to understand best practices. The deliverable for this stage will include videos of the candidate teaching courses, facilitating workshops, and supporting existing lecturers.
Proposal
Typically a disretation proposal is completed to clarify the research questions and outline what the end product will contain. I'll be creating a book proposal.
Dissertation
The dissertation is the culminating document, which clearly shows the candidates contribution to the field in novel and meaninful ways. I'll be writing a non-fiction book to be published.
Defence
An ominous portion of the PhD process is the oral defense, in which the candidate engages in a vigorous debate and oral defense of their dissertation to demonstrate their expertise. Our version of this concluding exercise is a keynote TED Talk.
I'm Candice Kelly
I started this project following my MA in Industrial Organizational Psychology at the Harvard Extension School. I fell in love with the researcher-practitioner model and wanted more. But as I looked into Ph.D, programs and spoke with post-docs, I learned more about the academic system and how my goals weren't necessarily aligned.
Seth Godin offers the altMBA, but I wanted an alternative doctorate-level program, and after reading The Third Door, and watching Scott Young's incredible TED Talk about designing his own MIT program, I set out to design my own program.
