Publish or Perish, but what about my dissertation?

I finally have worked on my first publication along side my advisor. "TERRAIN FEATURE EXTRACTION FROM VARIABLE RESOLUTION DIGITAL ELEVATION MODELS" The deadline to submit the publication came shortly after I advanced to candidacy. At that point, with such short notice, the project took on a whole knew look than the one my advisor had asked for. Luckily as i did the research, we still came up with some results. On top of that, on the last day, the deadline was extended. I could breath. But now instead of getting one project out of the way, I also had a paper t review. This would be a great experience for me, if i could ever get to it. I worked on the feature extraction project solely and made some progress. Although now with the deadline extended, i had to go back and do all those things i didn't do when i tried to meet the previous deadline. No worries, it almost took up the whole time, but we worked together at the end to make sure we presented our results and analysis clearly.

I asked for an extension on the paper I had to review because i just wasn't going to give it it's due diligence if i had to do it in the one night left before the deadline. No problem, got the extension and worked on the review. Submitted it the following week.

But no time to take a break yet...My advisor had to go back to the funding agency and present what we had done so far in order to get some more funding and keep any existing funding. So guess what, he needed a presentation. So i had to work on that in the next few days. So i created a presentation based on the paper we submitted, plus added some images and some analysis we didn't include in that paper. I left out the introduction so he could fill that in and i left out the "future work" part so he could also fill that in.

Break time? nope. in all this, about 6-7 weeks have passed and i have yet to work on my personal research. So i am thinking i may shift my research to fall more in line with what we are doing with this project so that i don't lose valuable time and opportunities. next step: future work

Advanced to candidacy!

I passed the written and the next step was to present my research proposal and pass the oral examination in order to advance to candidacy. When it comes to presentations, I usually think are pretty easy to present..but the content can always be a little tricky. Think about the audience and what they need to know, what questions they will ask and most importantly: what is the main purpose of the presentation. In some cases, the oral exam is an extension of the written exam where the PhD students can be asked anything about anything in the subject area. Or we may be asked to elaborate on some of the answers we prepared for the written exam. I didn't have any new questions but I was asked to elaborate on one of the questions. basically, one of the committee members was looking for a different perspective, not the typical answer which is pretty much what i came up with. I worked through that answer and it was no problem.

But that question was after the real questions came -- those based on the proposal presentation. I wrote the proposal about 2 months ago and my committee provided feedback. One of the critical questions I was asked is "What is the central question?" Apparently, i was not clear enough in illustrating what the real question was that i wanted to answer, and i didn't have any data. So I collected some data to present and tried to refine the central question.

Friday June 19th, I put on my shirt and tie, shoes and looked sharp. We started late, but i was confident and felt prepared. While waiting for a committee member to return from lunch, i sat and reviewed my notes (If you are preparing to do your orals, be sure to remind your committee so they don't forget). I began about 15 minutes late. During the presentation, the committee asked questions throughout, or even blurted out comments. Not terribly disruptive but I have to admit, it made me pretty nervous. After a committee member came in late, i pretty much had to start over from the beginning. I presented my research proposal, and then we spent alot of time talking about the data and the central question. Finally, after some questions that i did my best to answer, they asked me to leave the room so they could deliberate.

After about 15 mins, they called me back in. The committee felt like i had proposed a project that may not be able to be completed within a year, or ever. So they discussed the idea of changing the focus a bit to make it a doable project. I agreed with the assessment and agreed to come back in three months and meet with the committee to discuss my progress. And after all the discussion, and close to two hours, they all signed the form and checked off _(X)_Pass!! It was unanimous, and just like that, i was finally a PhD Candidate. This has probably been one of the biggest milestones i have had to overcome in my Academic career and i am glad it is now behind me.

Truth is, it wasn't that bad at all, just had to get up the nerve to do it...When it's your turn, just get ready to face the firing squad and be prepared to survive!

Motivation

Why do we go through these phases of little to no motivation even though the destination does not change. Our purpose for being here does not change. Each day i think i am going to be productive today but lo and behold...i don't get much done. I have to prepare for my oral exam which I would like to complete in less then 2 weeks. I also have this other research project that i am a couple of months behind on. Getting started is the hardest thing and i am so easily distracted. Once i get started i can at least make some headway into being productive. So if you are reading this and have some suggestions about being motivated and staying motivated...then please share. its not the overall motivation, its the daily grind that the issue.

I passed

I finally heard back from my committee. I passed my written exam conditionally since i have to rewrite one of the answers. It must have been the one i started responding to at about 3am. So i have about a week to revisit that question and submit the answers. Of course now the answer should be a very good answer since i have much more time. But I am happy that i only have to rewrite 1 out of the 9 questions. Now I have to prepare for my oral exam! Which means i really need to get cracking on refining my research proposal. My advisor says i am ready to defend it but i don't feel as confident yet in my approach. So I will work on that in upcoming weeks.

We finally received the grant money that we were waiting for. The government agency that is paying us to do some research needed to wait for the stimulus package to be signed before they could release any funds. Even though they were promised we had to wait to wait about 3 months to receive them. Once the money finally reached my school, it was lost in the mail system for about 30 days. Finally I can get my finances back in order. It was stressful at first and since we weren't getting paid, I wasn't doing any work in that area. Now that we have been paid for the past few months I have some serious catching up to do. I still have to make a serious decision about whether i want to continue to do my own personal research for my dissertation and work on this project on the side, or take some piece of this project and make it my dissertation. Ideally, It would be nice to merge the two somehow.

In other news, my turtle, Nueva Espiranza, swam in the back of the pack for a while, but came up strong at the end and made the final turn to take third place. Not a bad finish since she was holding 2nd to last for a while.

The great turtle race

After looking strong in second place last week, my turtle Nueva Espiranza has fallen back several spots. http://animals.nationalgeographic.com/greatturtlerace-map/

5 hours to spare.

I completed my written exam this morning and as you can imagine, I am pretty exhausted. I can't think anymore and am starting to get a headache. I ran out of food...ate all the salsa, blueberries, yogurt, shrimp, salmon...and I drank plenty of tea. I only had two cups of coffee surprisingly, but i never felt the need to crash either. Except around 4am each morning. I been going be strong the last few days and not stressing at all, but now I am feeling like i don't know what to do with myself. Wait...why am i still here. I still have 14 browser windows open, each with at least 10 tabs open to different resources. In addition i have stacks of printouts, overdue library books and i dried up two highlighters. And i managed to not run out of printer paper. My advice to anyone who is going to go through this process is to keep up with the reading...although, you are not going to know it all, you just need to know where to find the information. 2) be prepared physically and mentally. Get your meals ready, clothes, schedule etc. minimize the distractions and pace yourself. And of course don't forget to take a few breaks. I guess i didn't write enough during my exam cause i am still typing away. I wish this was my dissertation i was submitting!!! next year. But in the meantime. W.P.B. let me know if you need to know what that means.

Exams Day 2

Yesterday took me all day to get into the flow to answer the questions. I didn't get any sleep last night and have less then 20 hours to get to these questions which of course, are a little more difficult.

Vegas 09 -- Written Exams 4/1

Last week I traveled to Las Vegas NV, for a NSBE Convention and also presented at the American Association of Geographers (http://www.aag.org) conference. So for 7 days, I had to bare the heat and dry air. I had a good time though. It's always a great experience for me to be able to catch up with people i know and haven't seen or heard from in a while. I didn't spend much time at the AAG conference. I attended my chapter's party Wednesday night and Friday i presented on my research. It was a small audience but I am glad there were a few people there. The presentation itself was not very much technical content but I just wanted some feedback on my ideas.

The NSBE convention went well. I did the parliamentarian thing and made sure we got some folks elected into Regional Offices. But i am back in town and pretty tired. I have a lot of work to do in less then 36 hours to prepare for my written exam that didn't happen two weeks ago. I am probably going to do very minimal reading, i just want to clear my mind, be rested and relaxed come Wednesday April 1st. So i will go grocery shopping later to find me some brain food, and the cook up some meals so i can just pop them in the microwave. I set up a second office on campus so i can be isolated and surrounded by nothing but my books. But if i need a nap or to step out, I have a couch in my office right next door. So I am looking forward to Friday Night/Saturday morning to get past this milestone.

Blogger Mobile Post

I just added this mobile thingy o I can blog from my phone...but I have internet on my phone...s why didn't I just use the site directly...to much technology and access!

Exams on tuesday!

I finally wrote up a draft research proposal and submitted it to my committee on Friday the 13th. It clearly needs some more work but i needed to let them know what direction i was headed in with my research.

But now the exam is coming up. Today is Sunday...i have a 72 hour exam starting on tuesday. I have lots of books, papers, articles, resources ready to go. But i still haven't found a comfortable place to set up shop for this event. I am going to do some more reading for today and tomorrow and try and get as prepared as i can. Monday night...sleep well and Tuesday...get it crackin!

What a way to start the year...

New years was great...had a good time. The quarter started and then i left for a really good conference at GaTech. It was a Minority Faculty Development Workshop and i encourage all aspiring faculty, post docs and Jr professors to attend something similar. I stayed out on the east coast to go see my mom and fam...but i didn't do any work. I tried to get my mind in the research mode for these upcoming weeks.

So my research money has not arrived yet. Well that just means i have to pay tuition and fees out of my own pocket. I have to return my alternative free parking meter because i am no longer employed. All of this is because the grant that is paying me is on a "continued resolution" in congress before fund can be released. Well..i had taken out a student loan to pay off some bills so i wouldn't have to keep robbing peter to pay paul...but before i could do that, the university took out their cut...which was tuition and fees (which is out of my own pocket now with interest). So i stopped working on that research project for now.

While on hiatus, I can focus on my Phd Research and preparing for my qualifying exams. Once a PhD candidate, the cost of tuition and fees goes down, which makes everyone happy. hopefully i can do that before the next quarter starts. So in the meantime, i will be reading, writing and pretty much studying for this exam. I picked up the copy of past PhD exam questions...



Hopefully i can sift thru the questions to help me understanding what i need to be reading up on. Remember the list below? In addition, I have to write my research proposal. I will have a draft ready by Friday 2/6.