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Asst. Prof. Llige at the TriCollege PhD Philippine Studies Program: Dissertation Writing and Overcoming Blocks
By: Ania Iries M. Inot | February 18, 2025
Last December 14, Asst. Prof. Aurora S. Llige served as a resource speaker for a writing boot camp of the TriCollege PhD Philippine Studies entitled “The Reality of Writing and Overcoming Blocks” at the GT Toyota Hall of Wisdom.
Asst. Prof. Llige was awarded the Best Thesis Award for her dissertation entitled “Filipino Diaspora Engagement: Analyzing the Approach of the Government in Migration and Development”. Here, she shared the ways she had managed to successfully accomplish her thesis.
She prefaced her talk with a few disclaimers: (1) she was privileged enough to have that her methods won’t work for everyone; (2) this is her way of learning and growing. She also mentioned that while she was invited for a motivational talk about writing one’s dissertation and how her audience too could overcome blocks, she completed her writing not operating on motivation.
Instead, she emphasized operating on a tough-love approach. She was strict with deadlines and followed a stern routine to keep herself organized. For example, she treated her dissertation like office work. On the weekdays, she wrote and did her work for 8 hours of the day and rested during the weekends. In this way, she kept herself disciplined and accountable for the work that she had done.
Prof. Llige was not immune to writing blocks and laziness. In the times that she doesn’t feel like writing, she’ll take a break, see her friends in cafés, and travel to every point in South Korea. However, she also knew when she was making excuses and following her value of being accountable she often had to force herself to write—reading, note-taking, or writing one page was enough on those days.
Despite her need for a routine, she also appreciated experimenting with other methods to write her dissertation. In this way, she got to know herself better and what were the ways that worked for her and what didn’t. In her self-experimenting, she comes to find that her productivity is at its highest when alone and at home.
Her talk highlighted how dissertations are not fun—despite an interesting topic of choice, the process is agonizing. There are days when one’s writing doesn’t make sense and there are days that thirty pages of writing make sense all throughout. It comes and it goes and the important thing is to do it. “Do the work, get it over with, don’t prolong the agony,” Prof. Llige reiterates.
To learn more about her PhD journey at Ewha Womans University, South Korea, you can read her experience here: Meet Dr. Llige, Our Newest Ph.D. Holder!
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