The Graduation Date's been set.

Clearly, just trying to get a dissertation done without setting a completion date is not the best strategy for me. After all, it's been months and I have been working on pretty much the same thing. But, i finally set a date, well..several dates.
1) graduation date: this is important to set first, because it will really determine all the other deadlines and milestones and benchmarks for the dissertation progress. (June)

2) defense date: this has to be when the committee is available, and it should be before graduation, but it should also be inline with the university policies (may/june)

3) dissertation submittal: well, the dissertation submittal date needs to be in time enough for the committee to read the dissertation and provide feedback. (april)

4) my advisor needs to see the dissertation prior to the committee (at least in my case.) and he can provide feedback here as well. (March)

With that in mind, and considering a 5-6 chapter dissertation, i have from november to march to write it. (a chapter per month) doable? it better be! ambitious? YES! but i NEED to get it done!

Chapter 1

I ma working on my Lit review and it sucks...alot of reading and writing and summarizing...i have to find out what everyone else in the world has done in this subject area!! But...i am almost done.

Summertime work...

Summertime is always interesting as a grad student. I am still expected to do research...and of course, if i want to graduate anytime in the near future..i must continue to work on my dissertation. But in my case, I am supported by a research grant that is completely separate from my dissertation research. I am part of a government grant to help test the impact on different algorithms/methods, resolution and surface terrain type on feature extraction. Summer will be busy with several week long conferences and some personal travel as well. I have been sitting in on working groups and all hands meetings to discuss new research and update the grant providing agency with research updates. Of course we have been going non stop and I am exhausted! but they did feed us. So i have to go back and actually do the research I presented, but at the same time i have to find time to work on my own research as well. One of the groups this week was thought to be the brain trust of the generalization and integration industry.

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I'm so behind

of course...it's part of the process right? I need to get focused and figure out how i am going to finish my dissertation before the end of 2010. I tend to get really motivated for a short time, sort of like what caffeine does. So for starters, I decided to think more about what all the elements of my dissertation will be. I can work on parts where I can actually add input, that way I am always working on some part of it. Write something every night/or day is what they always say. Of course i haven't done that. So here we go, it probably won't be written here, but in my dissertation journal instead where it can easily be translated into the actual dissertation. I have a feeling that the longer it takes to work on this, the less significant it may be in the long run. So i have to redefine or better yet, define what is most significant about my work.

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!