KSU English professor Dr. Melissa Keith is more than just a teacher to her students. Keith’s unusual journey to achieve her education provides hope to students who worry about making it through college in a timely manner.
“Students often come to me with worries over keeping on track with the conventional timeline for earning an undergraduate degree,” Keith said.
Keith grew up in a small town in rural Georgia. At an early age, Keith knew she wanted to abandon her southern roots and experience life elsewhere.
Keith began her collegiate education at Tulane University, but soon transferred to the University of California at Berkeley. California was a culture shock for her, and she convinced herself that she would fail her classes the first semester. Keith quickly adjusted to a more sophisticated lifestyle and graduated summa cum laude.
“I accomplished more than a southern-drawling, southern, country girl could ever have dreamt,” Keith said.
After graduating, Keith enrolled in speech classes to fix her southern drawl. Her next academic feat was enrolling in the highest ranked doctoral program in English in North America at Berkeley. Although Keith was familiar with the English department at UC Berkeley, she was still nervous about the program’s level of difficulty.
“When leaping into a challenging arena, one either does everything possible to rise to the occasion, or one drops out,” Keith said.
Normally, 22 people are admitted to the Berkeley English department, but half of them always drop out. Keith continued her coursework with only 11 graduate students in her class. She remained focused, finished her coursework ahead of time and prepared to begin research on her dissertation. For many reasons Keith was unable to finish her dissertation and was classified as All But Dissertation or ABD. An ABD classification occurs when a doctoral student completes all of the required coursework for a PhD, but has not completed their dissertation. For 21 years, Keith was classified as ABD.
“It was at this point that the miracle transpired,” Keith said.
The maximum length to complete a dissertation is seven years, but former professors allowed her to complete her dissertation 20 years later.
In December 2012, Keith earned her PhD in English from UC at Berkeley, and was very excited about her academic achievement.
“Now I have Dr. on my office door and that feels magical,” Keith said.
Keith plans on publishing more work in the near future. “Next on the list is publication of two manuscripts: the dissertation and a memoir,” Keith said.
KSU students can learn from Dr. Keith’s story. She accomplished her goals despite the obstacles that stood in her way.
“I believe that I stand as an example—though not necessarily one to emulate—of how unusual feats in academia can be accomplished against the odds,” Keith said.
With all the classes, assignments, projects and extracurricular activities, it may seem that it is taking forever to graduate. Keith is a prime example that it is never too late to achieve one’s academic goals.
