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. 😀

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