#thesis process

🌗 meeting to discuss workshop development

good news! additional scientific writing workshops are going to be developed very casually with the goal of debuting them in the spring semester, so I don't need to do too much for them this fall

I'll be presenting my previous scientific writing workshop again, as well as providing tutoring to first-year STEM cohorts, which should be nice

they reminded me to communicate if I need to reduce my hours for in-center writing tutoring because of my other responsibilities this semester :)

⚡️review more sources

one was entirely unnecessary, so that was quick

I found another with fantastic additional information that I'll be incorporating into my draft after receiving feedback later this week

another source was less helpful than I had hoped but still has useful information. I'm not sure if I'll add it to my draft, but it makes me understand the geologic concepts I have to incorporate much better

🌈 unplanned ventures

one of my course syllabi was made available! I transferred it into my notion...four more to go! I'm hoping they'll all be ready before next Monday.

created a thesis skeleton that I'll be able to copy/paste my writing into, which ensures I'll avoid struggling to format it later in the semester

continued reading my book on Descartes, which I'm hoping to finish up by next week. I'm using it as preparation for my philosophy of science course, since it's been several years since I've read philosophy and he's one of the main philosophers for that subject. I've included a quote below that I rather enjoyed.

"Indeed the perfection of an image often depends on its not resembling its object as much as it might. You can see this in the case of engravings...in accordance with the rules of perspective they often represent circles by ovals better than by other circles, squares by rhombuses better than by other squares, and similarly for other shapes. Thus it often happens that in order to be more perfect as an image and to represent an object better, an engraving ought not to resemble it."

-"Optics", in Descartes: Selected Philosophical Writings

A few of you have been talking to me and asking about what a PhD thesis defense and process actually consists of. What does it look like? So I thought I’d take a moment to explain the thesis process and the defense(s). 

The first step is writing dissertation proposal (often called a Prospectus). This doesn’t have to be SUPER long (usually 20-50 pages), and it outlines the motivation and methods you intend to use in order to conduct a thesis-length research project. 

In my program, you defend the Prospectus in a closed session with the committee (3 faculty members from your department and one outside committee member). You prepare a ~20 minute presentation, and then questioning goes as long as goes. In my case, this was about an hour and a half. Given their suggestions and comments/concerns, your proposal then gets approved or not. My proposal was approved in February 2016. 

Then you DO the actual work. In my case, this involved 10 weeks doing fieldwork, crazy amounts of reading and analysis, and then you write the book! It is still crazy to me that I know enough to write an entire book. You work with your committee through all of this stage, taking advice and switching things up depending on how things work out.

Once you have a full draft, you begin working with your committee on the writing, presentation/interpretation, and packaging of the results. I’ve been in pretty much daily meetings with committee members for a week now and will continue to do so for the next 2. Crazy amounts of revisions and re-working so that you’re ready for the defense. 

The defense itself is a public event - anyone may attend. (Mine is on November 3) The PhD candidate prepares a 30-45 min lecture on their thesis work. This is not nearly long enough to present everything, so we typically focus on a single chapter or aspect of the analysis. It then opens up for the committee to question the candidate. This usually takes about an hour, and it is MEANT to be rough. It is MEANT to be ruthless. You have to prove yourself as an expert in your field. This is the big deal. Once the committee exhausts their questions, it opens up to the full audience. Anyone can ask questions then. This is typically another hour or so. Once the Q&A is finished, you wait while the committee deliberates. They then approve your thesis (and you get to be called Doctor) or not. My committee honestly would not have allowed me to schedule a defense if they didn’t plan on passing me. The question is just which revisions will be necessary in order to pass.

Once you’ve been approved, you get 6 months to make the necessary revisions to the document before filing your final version with the university! Once you file, it is OFFICIAL OFFICIAL... but after the defense is when we usually start throwing around the Doctor title. :-D

13.02.2023

online Master‘s open day and sleepy dogs >>>>

Finished my second draft of the introduction and sent it to my PI earlier today.

Agreed upon the timeline I created for thesis work.

Confirmed my participation in the college research symposium later this month. Which requires me to make a poster and. do other things. But I really enjoy presenting research, so some probable-late nights are worth it.

Scheduled data analysis for next week.

🌈 miscellaneous

For reasons I don't feel like fully explaining simply because it is lengthy and I'm tired, it's very likely that I did not get the internship (although I still don't have full confirmation). But I'm honestly kinda relieved because that would have been...rather a lot. I ended up applying to a couple random ones for after the school year that seemed interesting.

read ahead a little for my philosophy of science and environmental sustainability classes

catching up with my lab mates was really nice!! and the new members are very friendly; one of them I apparently share a class with.

Writing tutoring started properly this week and it was a lot busier than the beginning of semesters usually are! I had some really fantastic sessions with students, and the new cohort is shadowing us vets so they were very complimentary. Which is always nice :)