Dissertating and Graduating
I went to a school sponsored seminar the other day for students planning to graduate this semester. The administrative assistant (AA) who ran the session taught us a lot about a ton of things including: 1. The vast amounts of paperwork she has to do so that we can get the privilege of graduating this great institution; 2. How much work all of it is (for her); 3. She is on our side!; 3. Each of the requirements (a 15 step plan!) were made by "higher ups" (not her); 4. If we slip up on a single of the 15 steps, we will not be able to graduate; and in contrast to 4 above: 5. If we are her friend (implied: and bring her little gifts) she may make exceptions to 4 above.
We were even given a handy cheat sheet: "Doctoral Students- Final Steps to Graduation." Helpfully laid out in this handout were the 15 different and discrete steps to be undertaken in the coming 2 months. Naturally each step included about 3-4 sub steps, many of which required their own separate administrative fees as well as the contact information for the friendly administrative staff responsible for each, spanning men and women in multiple offices in multiple buildings in multiple states (!) who were all "on our side.". The AA went over each step carefully, emphasizing the finer points of each,including the year in which each step was added to the list of requirements and how it was prior to the adoption of that requirement and which dean or faculty committee requested each step and why (as far as she can tell because "Lord knows I just do what they tell me.")
My favorite, naturally, was Step 6, sandwiched in between completion of step 5 (forms) and step 6 (more forms): Write your Dissertation and have it approved by your academic advisory committee.
Lord knows I just do what they tell me. Though if I find time for Step 6 in between all the legwork that steps 1-5 and 7-15 will take, I will consider myself lucky, indeed.
We were even given a handy cheat sheet: "Doctoral Students- Final Steps to Graduation." Helpfully laid out in this handout were the 15 different and discrete steps to be undertaken in the coming 2 months. Naturally each step included about 3-4 sub steps, many of which required their own separate administrative fees as well as the contact information for the friendly administrative staff responsible for each, spanning men and women in multiple offices in multiple buildings in multiple states (!) who were all "on our side.". The AA went over each step carefully, emphasizing the finer points of each,including the year in which each step was added to the list of requirements and how it was prior to the adoption of that requirement and which dean or faculty committee requested each step and why (as far as she can tell because "Lord knows I just do what they tell me.")
My favorite, naturally, was Step 6, sandwiched in between completion of step 5 (forms) and step 6 (more forms): Write your Dissertation and have it approved by your academic advisory committee.
Lord knows I just do what they tell me. Though if I find time for Step 6 in between all the legwork that steps 1-5 and 7-15 will take, I will consider myself lucky, indeed.
Labels: dissertation, graduation
posted by Julep at 2:17 PM
1 Comments:
somewhere between dissertating and gradutating dont forget the tesseracting. or perhaps, do the tesseracting only after both the dissertating and gradutating have been completed, but before you've checked in for your first post grad position, all the better so that no one will notice you've tesseracted off world for a much needed rest and relaxation tour.
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