I finally made it to graduation last Friday. There were times when I didn’t think it was a possibility, particularly when I was struggling with full time work, course work and trying to fit some research in as well. Even when the course work was done, the research dragged on. The amount of work I managed to do on it depended largely on how busy my job was at the time. Motivation levels were often very low as well, as I wasn’t particularly interested in the topic. And, of course, when my house was burgled and my laptop stolen, I lost an entire chapter worth of data that I didn’t have backed up anywhere else.

I perservered, though, pushed on largely by Cheryl who tried her best to keep me motivated. When it came to writing my thesis, Andrew took pity on me and arranged a monitor, keyboard and desk so that I didn’t have to spend hours hunched over the laptop at the kitchen table. For months on end I got up at 5 am so I could work on the thesis before work, and would come home from work and continue on it until 10 pm or so. I resented the thesis for taking up all my spare time. And when it came to formatting, I hated it with a passion. There is one unforgetable Sunday, after spending days trying to format the thesis, that I opened the document just to find things were back to how they had started before formatting and I screamed and screamed at the computer and cried my heart out. I just didn’t know what else to try to get the document how I wanted it and not how Word apparently thought it should be.

January 31 2007 I submitted my thesis for examination. On June 1st I got the results of the examination, which were better than I had expected. Just minor corrections to the satisfaction of the Head of School. It took me 3 months to get those changes made. I had only just found out I was pregnant when the results came in, and I was so exhausted all the time that there was no way I could drag myself out of bed at 5 am, and absolutely no more chance that I could keep my eyes open after work. Consequently it took me 3 months to get the changes done, took another 2 months for Nick (my main supervisor) to approve the changes, and when I worked out what I had to submit to the Head of School, he ended up approving it very quickly.

So, from submission to graduation it was 10.5 months, and from enrollment to graduation it was some 5 years and 8 months. I’m just glad that I never have to look at that thesis ever again!!

I now have it in writing…..I’ve passed my Masters!

Last weekend, to celebrate, I burned all my printed drafts, leaving the copy I submitted for last. 🙂

….to being able to put the letters ‘MSc.’ after my name!

Today I was told that my thesis changes have been approved by the head of school. So now it’s just a matter of getting some copies of the thesis bound so that I can submit 2 bound copies and one electronic copy of the thesis to the relevent places, and then I’m all done. I will also send a copy to both of my supervisers.

YAY!!!

Yesterday I decided to email Nick, my old boss and Masters supervisor, to let him know that I had contacted the Graduate Research School a couple of weeks ago and they had told me that they’d received comments from one examiner and were waiting on the other.  I also put in some links to wedding photos, since I thought he might be interested.

Thismorning I noticed I’d received two emails from him, both with attachments.  One attachment was labelled ‘Examiner 1 report’ and another ‘Examiner 2 report’.  The first email I had clicked on simply had the attachment and no text in the email, so I clicked on the other to see if Nick had said anything in it.  My computer at work is terribly slow, though, and I tapped my fingers on the desk anxiously for what seemed like eternity before anything appeared on the monitor.  I quickly read the first line of the email, but before I went any further I thought I’d forward both emails on to Cheryl.  So I did that, my computer again taking what seemed like an eternity to achieve that task, and went back to finish reading the first email from Nick.  While I was scanning the few lines he’d written, I picked up the phone and called Andrew. 

Andrew answered his phone and I started crying.  He wanted to know what was wrong, and I just sobbed “no, no nothing is wrong, I got the examiners’ reports for my thesis today” and burst out into a fresh lot of tears.  The poor boy had no idea what was going on and thought the worst.  I couldn’t have even predicted such a response to the words Nick wrote, but there you go.  Anyway, here’s what he wrote:

“Chris, thanks for your wedding photos, and now more good news; thesis is almost through, just minor corrections required to my and the Head of School’s satisfaction to finally finish this thing off.”

It doesn’t have to be completely rewritten, it doesn’t require more research, and it doesn’t have to go back for re-examination after I make the changes!!  One examiner had eight pages of comments and the other had three.  A statement from the former examiner was “The thesis has addressed issues of immediate concern to researchers in the field of Cryptosporidium in water.  The research has been clearly defined in each chapter and the experiments well described.  The knowledge gained has been valuable and would be appreciated by a wider audience so I encourage the candidate to public the results in other places.” and from the latter “While the work presented does not address all factors that may influence Cryptosporidium oocyst mobility…..Nevertheless, the aspects covered have been done so in a thorough and convincing manner.  Indeed, given that the work is presented as a Masters thesis, there is little that should be changed or corrected.  The quality of the writing is excellent and overall presentation is of a high standard.” 

I couldn’t be more thrilled with this result. 😀

I rang the Graduate Research School at uni today to find what stage my thesis examination is up to.  It has been 3.5 months since I submitted, and ideally the process takes 6 weeks.  Though having said that, I know of students who have waited 6 months for their results. 

All the Graduate Research School could tell me was that they had received comments back from one of the two examiners on May 14th. 

And all that’s done is make me even more nervous about it than I was before.