Two years and holding

The semester and another school year are over. In a couple weeks the class of '09 will start arriving for their new student conferences. I'm still here.

The Computer Science department instituted an annual PhD evaluation process last year. I'll leave my political commentary on the process out of this since none of the readers care about CS department conspiracies. The process is a good thing and I've seen it used successfully in scholarship programs, period.

As I filled out my evaluation form this year -- The process includes submissions by each student and their advisor. The submissions are reviewed by the tenured faculty. -- I was disappointed in some of my responses.

1. Have you completed your proposal defense? No.
2. When did you, or do you plan to, complete your proposal defense? Fall 2005
3. When do you plan to defend your dissertation? Fall 2007
4. When do you plan to graduate? December 2007

I noted when I started this blog that I wanted to defend my proposal this spring when my advisor returned from sabbatical. Due to a number of research (re)designs, paper deadlines, and three conferences in short order that hasn't happened. My dissertation topic has finally been generally agreed upon by my advisor and I, but that isn't all that I wanted to get done.

Here's to me hopefully having a productive summer and getting my proposal done earlier than I plan on now. Until it is defended the countdown to graduation is reset and suspended to T minus two years and holding.