Other side of defense

Pending a little paperwork, I am now Doctor Materials Science! I still have some fairly minor revisions to do, and a whole lot of data curation, not to mention paper writing. Unsuprisingly, there was just no way to get everything through my advisor's queue before funding-imposed deadlines. At least this way, he's actually looked at the body of data, and we can talk about what goes in the papers *first*, and then spend the many hours writing them all.


But I'm trying to not let the sense of relief at being done let me give up on getting things changed. I'm compiling a list of dates from emails before scheduling meetings with our new department chair and Associate Dean of Graduate Education about what's happened to me, and why I think the annual review process is so incredibly important to follow up on. It should never be more than 12 months before your advisor even *opens* the file for the draft you sent. Because the annual reviews are still a very new process for many departments, I really want to help the people who enforce them to understand the kinds of things we wanted them for.

So what's next?

On the job front, getting a SMART scholarship wrapped that up pretty neatly. I have a two year contract, after which I can choose to continue working at my sponsoring facility, move within the DoD, or simply move on. I'll be moving from atomistic simulations to being the materials person in a mechanical engineering/ finite element modeling group. It looks like I will also be able to pursue some multiscale modeling projects, and there are mechanisms for internal research grants to run my own projects.

Working for the DoD means I won't be going to many conferences for a while, which is a major complication in looking for faculty jobs, if I decide that government labs aren't a good fit for me. It's also going to limit how many papers I can publish, because, well, it's the DoD... However, I want a more teaching-oriented position (not because I think they're less work, because I love teaching). My graduate experience has been limited in terms of opportunities for teaching.

So I'm planning to do a series of YouTube tutorials for Intro to MSE type classes. I've heard from many students that there is a real lack of resources in our field, and that sometimes, they just need a different explanation than the one in the book. It doesn't help that the vast majority of these classes use books by the same author, nationwide. It's a good book, but doesn't help these kinds of students, and an awful lot of Wikipedia entries are paraphrase or straight up plagiarizing these same texts.

What next for this space?

Frankly, I don't know. It's been a handy place to rant about the stupidity of things for awhile. But I want my tutorials to be associated with my real name, so I can use them for job applications, and I don't really want it all tied back to the whinging. Ranting about the stupidity of the DoD in any public forum, pseudonymous or not, seems, well, stupid. There will probably be more posts about the papers process with my PI. But I will probably let it slowly drift away into the depths of internet memory, not unlike my high school LiveJournal...

Just... sigh.

Friday morning "I'll have Chapter 3 to you in a few hours"

This apparently means more than 48 hours. Of radio silence. Despite multiple emails asking for any update, verification he hadn't been hit by a bus, anything really.

I can see the time stamps from track changes. Even accounting for being in a different time zone, there's no way he really believed that time line.

Or else he's even more self-delusional than I thought.

This is the way my thesis ends, not with a bang but a whimper.

Same old, same old...

Thesis chapters are supposed to be sent to my committee this Friday. I've gotten feedback on 1 of 5. My advisor is in Europe. Yep. Unrealiable to the very end...

On Faculty Hiring

Can selecting the wrong thesis topic be the difference between getting a faculty job and not? I am working on an area which I find very interesting, but that doesn't really fit the buzzword categories necessary to get published in glamor mags. Yet, it seems like everyone I talk to mentions the importance of impact factor in publications when you're looking to apply for jobs. It feels very much like picking a hot topic when you first enter grad school, and may therefore have no idea what the hot topics in your field actually are, is critical to succeeding in this crazy game. 

Of course, there are always compounding circumstances, but it isn't very reassuring to hear the head of your departments current search committee say that they're only considering applicants with at least one Nature or Science paper. Then again, my particular MRU is well known for having a major prestige boner. 

Last week's conference left me feeling very mixed about where I stand right now, and where I want to go next. I love my field, but after spending two years in the DoD, my publication record isn't going to be spectacular (for very obvious reasons), and I worry. Of course, that could just be the cold-induced insomnia talking. 

Colds, my favorite conference souvenir...

Progress: Day 3

So I've learned some things about how Microsoft Word's word count tool works, and may wind up re-adjusting my goals. For example, it counts every entry in a table of numbers. It also deals very oddly with symbols and equations.

November 3rd:

Starting Metrics:
Ch. 1 -820
Ch. 2 - 1,943
Ch. 3 - 1,480
Ch. 4 - 873
Ch. 5 - 41
Ch. 6 - 7
---------------
           5,165

Paper 1 (Ch. 1) - 5,504
Paper 2 (Ch. 3) - 1,102
Paper 3 (Ch. 3) - 1,635
Paper 4 (Ch. 4) - 2,906 {currently in advisor limbo}
Paper 5 (Ch. 4) - 1,222
Paper 6 (Ch. 5) - 155
Paper 7 (not even slightly related to my thesis) - 1,811
-------------------------------
                            14,376


The papers relevant to Chapter 2 are already written, and hence are not included in the totals (but total 7,764 words, which may help Ch. 2 expand a bit more quickly)

Thesis Meter:

1685 / 10000

Paper Meter:

143 / 5000

NaThesisWriMo?

So if you have friends who write fiction, you've probably heard of National Novel Writing Month, NaNoWriMo, where they all try to write 50,000 words during the month of November. Why November? Because the people who started it wanted to take advantage of the more miserable weather. Fair enough.

To help motivate myself, I've decided to adapt the concept for thesis/paper writing. 50,000 words is probably longer than my entire thesis should be (50,000 words ~ 200 double spaced pages without figures). Instead, I'm setting my goals as adding 10,000 words to my thesis, and an additional 5,000 words in papers. I'm also going to *gasp* update the blog with progress reports. (References are not included in the word counts). Unlike the actual NaNoWriMo, there's no prizes, other than things being done. Which is a pretty awesome prize.

Starting Metrics:
Ch. 1 - 561
Ch. 2 - 1,650
Ch. 3 - 1,185
Ch. 4 - 36
Ch. 5 - 41
Ch. 6 - 7
---------------
           3,480

Paper 1 (Ch. 1) - 5,504
Paper 2 (Ch. 3) - 1,102
Paper 3 (Ch. 3) - 1,635
Paper 4 (Ch. 4) - 2,906 {currently in advisor limbo}
Paper 5 (Ch. 4) - 1,222
Paper 6 (Ch. 5) - 155
Paper 7 (not even slightly related to my thesis) - 1,811
-------------------------------
                            14,335


The papers relevant to Chapter 2 are already written, and hence are not included in the totals (but total 7,764 words, which may help Ch. 2 expand a bit more quickly)

Thesis Meter:

0 / 10000 (0.00%)

Paper Meter:

0 / 5000 (0.00%)

Downsides of Fellowships

So it's been nearly a year since I wrote anything. Not much has really changed, and I just didn't feel like repeating myself. I did get a SMART fellowship in the end, but it's a mixed blessing.

You see, this week, one of the students who started in my group at the same time as I did defended. Mostly because our advisor ran out of funding for him, and he had enough to constitute a thesis. I'm really happy to see someone graduate, but it's been frustrating as well. In the rush to get this student out the door, they've worked on three papers, while one of mine continues to languish in my advisor's inbox. I'm hoping this is not another 2 year wait... I've got proof that he can be functional, when forced to be, just no force.

Because I'm funded, I'm no longer a priority. There are no external forces to make my advisor read my papers right now. So instead of defending soon, the scope of my projects just got a little bigger, so he can justify keeping me until the funding runs out. In the meantime, I stay firmly at the bottom of his reading list. Motivating yourself to write papers under these conditions is damn hard, but I'm trying. Me working harder/faster won't change my graduation date. Writing more papers won't even get me papers any faster.

I just want feedback. But apparently that's too much to ask.