Aaaaaaaaaanticipation....
The planets finally aligned, and I was able to settle on a date and time for my second thesis committee meeting. Monday, March 21st, 2005 at 2:00 pm. My own personal D-Day. (Obviously I can't get away with calling it D-Day. T-Day? I'm open to suggestions).
I believe these thesis committee meetings have several purposes:
There is a question of how much the student can dictate the course of his/her own fate. Obviously, I can't just walk in there and state "I'M DONE" and expect to be taken seriously. But there are some small subtle things one can do to nudge the committee in the right direction. Barb has been very helpful in this regard - she wants to review my committee report and have me rehearse my presentation in front of her. And she gave me this advice: "You tell the committee what experiments you need to do to finish. Don't let them dictate that, or they'll put too big of a load on you and you won't make your deadline." We'll see how that works.
Due to the difficulty in organizing the third-year schedule, MD-PhD students must join the class at the beginning of the school year, in late June. If a student cannot finish his or her thesis until August, they're pretty much out of luck and have to wait until the following June to rejoin the medical school curriculum. As you can see, the stakes are high - the outcome of this meeting determines whether I move on with my life or I mark time for another year in graduate school.
We don't want that to happen now, do we? Seriously - can you take yet another year of Barb tales?
I believe these thesis committee meetings have several purposes:
- Inclusion of scientists who don't work in your field are able to give objective critiques on the science being performed in the project
- Multiple suggestions are given regarding the best direction in which the student's thesis project should go
- It is an opportunity for the student to demonstrate whether he or she can function as a scientist independently, through the presentation and discussion of the data
There is a question of how much the student can dictate the course of his/her own fate. Obviously, I can't just walk in there and state "I'M DONE" and expect to be taken seriously. But there are some small subtle things one can do to nudge the committee in the right direction. Barb has been very helpful in this regard - she wants to review my committee report and have me rehearse my presentation in front of her. And she gave me this advice: "You tell the committee what experiments you need to do to finish. Don't let them dictate that, or they'll put too big of a load on you and you won't make your deadline." We'll see how that works.
Due to the difficulty in organizing the third-year schedule, MD-PhD students must join the class at the beginning of the school year, in late June. If a student cannot finish his or her thesis until August, they're pretty much out of luck and have to wait until the following June to rejoin the medical school curriculum. As you can see, the stakes are high - the outcome of this meeting determines whether I move on with my life or I mark time for another year in graduate school.
We don't want that to happen now, do we? Seriously - can you take yet another year of Barb tales?
posted by Mikey at 11:20 AM
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