tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-931229053785314543.post1354563591069153159..comments2023-05-30T04:48:38.284-04:00Comments on Periodic Boundary Conditions: Happy Academic New Year!Miss MSEhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/06529587231142371243noreply@blogger.comBlogger2125tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-931229053785314543.post-35949138173645382282012-09-10T07:42:47.679-04:002012-09-10T07:42:47.679-04:00I'm not attached to the thesis itself, I'm...I'm not attached to the thesis itself, I'm attached to the idea of graduating. Furthermore, because of how my advisor reads, if it's not going to be in the thesis, the odds are not good that the paper will ever make it off his desk. If 5 of the last 6 students to graduate from the group are writing papers from the thesis, rather than the reverse, it seems reasonable to assume that my advisor isn't going to change his ways, no matter how everyone else does it. <br /><br />If he were changing his vision for my thesis based on the results I had gotten, that would be reasonable, and understandable. However, in observing older students in the group, he completely changes his expectations based on what funding he's chasing instead of what data we have. So a student who was working on "underwater basketweaving" for 5 years will be expected to write up on "subterranean sock knitting" work they've done for 6 months with the justification that "They're both processing techniques, right?"<br /><br />Miss MSEhttps://www.blogger.com/profile/06529587231142371243noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-931229053785314543.post-69035182756510188962012-09-08T20:15:53.135-04:002012-09-08T20:15:53.135-04:00I am curious: why are you so attached to a documen...I am curious: why are you so attached to a document—your thesis—that hardly anyone will ever read?<br /><br />"My biggest worry is that in a year, my PI is going to completely change his vision for my thesis from what was in my proposal, and most of that will be wasted."<br /><br />And that is how it should be. If your research follows the outline that you laid out six years ago, it suggests that your research is only incremental in nature and better not be done. It is natural and beneficial to let the vision wander around so that it allows you the flexibility to discover (by accident and not by design) something cool and novel along the way. <br /><br />And as much as we want to head back to the old times where papers were written from the individual chapters of the thesis, the reality is that we are way past that time and culture. Now the papers are paramount —–—and not just for your advisor, but to you as well, irrespective of the path you chose post graduation. Earlier the challenge used to be deciding how to flesh out papers from thesis, and now it is how do you write a coherent thesis story from the papers that you already have. That is the only difference. <br /><br />I guess this holds true for all scientific fields these days, but it absolutely does for the fast moving field of materials science. Just thought it is a good idea to think about this early, in least to avoid world of pain later on. :)Anonymousnoreply@blogger.com