An Epistle to the iPostles: A Sermon on the Mount(anious) Journey from Ph.D. Student to LIS Professor

This chapter presents the personal narrative of one first-generation Ph.D. student who managed to obtain a tenure-track assistant professor position in an R1 School of Library and Information Science (LIS). The narrative adopts a critical perspective that seeks to critique the system that doctoral students find themselves in and offer strategies for countering the oppressive reality of being at the bottom position of the system while also offering ideas for how to move as nimbly as possible through the system for individual success as well as solidarity with contemporaneous and future Ph.D. students. Specific discussion points include: (1) getting started in a Ph.D. program, (2) coursework and comprehensive exam, (3) dissertation and research, and (4) job search. Ultimately, readers will move forward with one vision for how to make the Ph.D. journey a more socially just one, as well as their own ideas for how to implement some of the recommended actions in their own careers and institutions.