Hooding done right

My first time being in the state for graduation festivities, for I found the hooding ceremony to be quite enjoyable.

Parades Go By

April is a-flutter with dissertation defenses in my department. This is cool as it is a lot of data supporting the hypothesis that yes, people actually graduate. Despite any and all challenges, it happens. Tomorrow, one of my labmates will defend her dissertation. It will be the first defense from my lab that I will be in the state to see. For a while I was worried that the flight cancellations last week would keep me from getting back in time. Luckily, I'm home and now very excited for tomorrow! I hope it goes well and am looking forward to the celebration.

Of course, she is the last remaining student in the lab that is senior to me. Expect a rumination on the realities of Being Next later in the week....

Ch-Ch-Ch-Changes

Last year's realization of light at the end of the tunnel is nothing compared to this year's realization that by this time next year, I should be turning in chapters and thinking about defense dates. Last year there was elation and excitment, this year all we've got is paralyzing fear.

Faced with this knowledge of what is right around the corner, I started doing some prepping over the holiday break. Organizing files, trying to clear my life of old (but nice) data and clear my desk of side projects. This is going well. I sent revised-version-2 of my oldest not-yet-published paper to my advisor on Friday. He called me at 10am on Saturday morning with excitment about how it has progressed but also 1 more (difficult) change to the introduction. I wanted to submit this by the end of the month. It should get submitted on time, providing my quals-taking co-author gives it her stamp of approval...

There is soooo much more to be done to deal with the major, fear inducing year ahead of me though. I need to start making small changes now. To begin with, I need to re-prioritize what is on my to do list and re-evaluate how I spend my days. Last month, New Years didn't really inspire much resolute change for me. Perhaps I was just waiting for it to be the Last Year in order to get myself on the right track...

Number 1 Mistake

We have been having a little search here for a new faculty member. There seems to be one major mistake that some candidates have made. It happened when talking about future directions for research. They got stumped...and it was their own fault. They had something included in slides that they did not understand and could not explain. We saw this problem as part of a result and part of a technique but every time it was a major red flag for those, otherwise excellent, candidates.

In my own subfield, collaberation is very common. Not everyone is an expert in everything despite our best efforts to produce integrative results. While I would always assume that you don't put something up on a slide without understanding it, I know see that it can easily be done (looking back I am sure I have done it with my statistics here or there. I'm still too scientfically young to have collaberated on anything neat enough that I didn't do it myself). Also, it is a big deal.

So. Note to self someday: Only include things in your job talk that you FULLY understand and can discuss in detail. Even if it isn't your specialty or is just a tiny detail on a figure.

*Sorry for any spelling mistakes, spell check in Blogger is being all sorts of funny...

Congrats to a new Dr.

One of our departments favorites is leaving us. Today was his last day actually. Monday, grad student (and Sneks boyfriend), Ry, defended his thesis. He had very few revisions, turned bound copies in today and leaves for his postdoc this weekend. He is a great model for success in our department and it was very inspiring to see him fly through the defense with ease. I want to extend my biggest congrats to him!

It is very sad for our department though. I swear, as he finished his acknowledgements slide, there were people tearing up. He is one of those students that everyone loves. Softball team captain, president of the grad student organization, wins university-wide awards for his research- he'd be prom king if that grad student organization listened to my suggestion to have a formal. All this and a totally down to earth guy who genuinely cares and will do whatever he can to help you out. I have no doubts he will continue to do great research and be a great professor and advisor to some lucky students someday. Congrats again Dr. Ry! Here is the new Dr. and V after a particularly taxing round of 'RockBand.'

Junior Kickstart

There were some major happenings in my department last month. All pre-proposal grad students have to meet with a committee to make sure they are moving forward at a timely pace. Usually, one half of the committee doesn't show up. Of those that do, half aren't even paying attention to you, so they give you a lecture to get your proposal done and 5 minutes later you are back to work. Except, this year they are making good on some promises they made recently. Important promises such as how long they will continue providing funding for grad students. So, after these meetings it turns out that one of my office mates is on the chopping block. They are not kicked out, per say, they are welcome to continue working on research but will no longer be funded by the department.

In talking about this, no one is surprised at the lack of progress of this student. People see them at the bar but not in the halls and surely not in our office. When the news passed through labmates and grad students, I did not have much sympathy for the student. Yes, sometimes people take a long time in grad school. Experiments don't work. Techniques are hard to master or difficult in your system. Advisors are crazy. Personal tragedies occur. Anything can happen and it happens to some of the best. The students that continue on through these trials in addition to all the other crap that grad school piles on deserve a lot of respect.
However, those students that don't try, care, or do anything at all for years on end? Including show up? I have no problems with them being called out, losing their funding or even being asked to leave. If someone has no interest in research and does the bare minimum for teaching, and this goes on for years, why support them? It can negatively affect the advisor, lab, other grad students and undergraduates as well (particularly the ones they were supposed to teach!).

Saying out loud (or on the blog) that some grad students shouldn't be funded seems wrong. I feel like a traitor going against the whole supportive spirit of being in the student trenches. On the other hand, I'm sick of people taking advantage of this system that I hold in high esteem due to its importance in the development of my career. So, I sat on this post for a while trying to be a bit clearer in my feelings about it all. In this time, it turns out that the actions of the department may have turned this student around. I saw them everyday for a whole week before Xmas. In the office, computer lab and actual lab and in the halls on the 31st. I assume they are working and hope they can turn it around, get things done and be present in our department. If not, I hope they don't sit, unhappily stagnant in our department for another few years.

Do other departments run a tighter ship or do these types of students lurk in labs (or actually NOT in the labs!) across academia?

Beginning to See the Light

Something has changed. It snuck up on me and seems very sudden and drastic. I’m not sure how it happened but I am closer to being a graduating student than a beginning student in my Ph.D. program. Three years have passed and I am on track to have only two left. Of course all of this provides that I finish my research, the data is interesting and I don’t fall to pieces when it comes to writing the dissertation. Those are some pretty big conditions to meet!

Anyways, with this realization, my focus has changed. I have always needed to get papers written and get research done but it is different now. Things that I am most involved in are higher in priority than anything else. Side projects are just that and my own stuff has to come first. This might mean being involved in fewer projects but is a necessary step I think. I know that my time is limited and I am trying to use it wisely (at least when I’m not uhhh, reading blogs...). I have every day till the end on July planned out with experiments and lab work and have only 1 day off to run a race around the 4th. Things will be finished when I leave here.
The dynamic with other students and my advisor has changed too. In the department, I really don’t know the newer students coming in (besides V of course) because I am not in classes with them. Perhaps if I were actually there I would know them more but I’m plugging away at this thing and have been since they showed up. We don't even have shared hallways or happy hours to bond and commiserate over.
Things with my advisor are even weirder. Most of the time, I try to just accept his special brand of crazy and we get along fine- great even. But with some of my work lately, there are decisions to be made about protocol and our usual chats about research that always end with him telling me what he thinks will be best and then my choosing whether or not to do that thing just are not happening. Since it is my research, he is very, very quiet with his opinions and very loud about my making my own choices and making sure I can back them up with well founded reasoning. He even told me to be sole author on my poster at the big conference this summer (and I complied, but not without checking with him three times that it was the best thing to do). This push to research on my own is new and a little uncomfortable.
This light-at-the-end-of-the-tunnel feeling is accompanied by anxiety. I’m not ready. It’s too soon. Not enough papers. Not good enough papers. Samples sizes must be bigger. More treatments. Did I miss a control? Will my committee be satisfied? It is also accompanied by confidence. I am ready. Look how far I’ve gotten already! I am sure both of these feelings will pass as I delve back into the intense research period that is planned out for the next month and a half. Either way, I am aware of my progression which is really, really weird.

Carnival!

I am back at DO and settling in for an intensive month of research, writing, data collection and preparation for my biggest conference of the year (more on all this later on...). Last weekend, in the midst of the flurry of the final wedding of the season (or at least for 3 more months), something happened that I haven't mentioned yet. This blog started out as a way to show my family and friends pictures and maybe get some help with my knitting. My PhD program and research don't leave much time for knitting and often I have thought of trying to change the title of this thing to not be so tied directly to knitting. I talk more about grad school and research but 'Underwater Grad School' just doesn't have the same ring to it.

Well, despite my included post not actually being about anything to do with grad school (it was about the wedding), I was included in the Carnival of GRADual Progress last month. I feel like I got invited to sit with the cool kids at lunch or something. I am a regular reader of most of the blogs included but am still figuring out how, when and how much to say about school and academia given my initial audience of friends and family. Anyways, I want to thank Geeka for hosting the carnival and including my post and Hello! and thank you to anyone stopping by from there!

Long, long, long

After a Blogger induced hiatus last night- I PASSED!

As soon as a few minor revisions are completed (I get to cut out experiments instead of adding them at least!) I will officially be a PhD CANDIDATE!!

Yippee!!!
The defense was ridiculous. It was good conversation the whole time and I didn't get stumped on anything. Everyone seemed to be interested and even the committee member known throughout the department for falling asleep in every seminar stayed awake the whole time.

The only bad thing was that it was 4 HOURS LONG. 4 hours of explaining theory and hypotheses and standing in heels. I left the room for them to deliberate and promptly started crying- 4 hours is apparently too long for me to be on the spot and hold it together afterwards. I was still crying after they told me I passed (my advisor has seen this stress response from me before, while everyone else just thought I was upset for some reason despite passing). I pulled it together, had a beer, dinner and passed out at home. Now I must finish the revisions and get ready to leave PA- and one of these days I will get some more sleep...

Memorize Your Lines

So I gave my first run of my proposal defense to my advisor and a couple students nice enough to give me an hour of their precious grad student time. It went ok- I had no note cards and really hadn't even even timed it or run through it out loud yet. My advisor indicated that it was good enough as is and actually said something about not practicing too much for fear I will practice myself into worse condition (he is a little strange sometimes- the other day he just stopped by my office in the middle of the afternoon to tell me that I need to publish more. No explaination, no nothing- just walked away. Ummmmm, thanks?). Anyways, it is looking like I will be ok by Tuesday although I still feel as I have a lot of note card making, practicing and polishing to do.

Tomorrow V and I run a 5k- right AFTER the 30 degree drop in temperature. It is scheduled to be 31 degrees but sunny. Brrrr....maybe it will get me to run faster to get back inside quicker! Then it might be a long weekend huddled in cozy blankets working away and TRYING to relax. Good news for this blog- that might actually include picking up my knitting for the first time in 2 weeks!