Academia Ghetto Thread

[Mesozoic Mister Nigel]

Oh, and I got inducted into Phi Kappa Phi today, and saw the President of Honors, and she said that I can totally definitely combine my McNair with my Honors thesis. That is a HUGE weight lifted, I will be able to stay in my lab for a whole year and next summer I won't be doing anything but research.

[Doktor Howl]

Oh, and I got inducted into Phi Kappa Phi today, and saw the President of Honors, and she said that I can totally definitely combine my McNair with my Honors thesis. That is a HUGE weight lifted, I will be able to stay in my lab for a whole year and next summer I won't be doing anything but research.

This is full of awesome.   

[Mesozoic Mister Nigel]

Oh, and I got inducted into Phi Kappa Phi today, and saw the President of Honors, and she said that I can totally definitely combine my McNair with my Honors thesis. That is a HUGE weight lifted, I will be able to stay in my lab for a whole year and next summer I won't be doing anything but research.

This is full of awesome.   

I am pretty damn stoked because I was stressing pretty hard about how I would manage to get it all done.

[Cain]

I've finally heard back about the dissertation:

Good afternoon, Everyone.

You have now completed the fourth module of the programme and are now ready to progress to the dissertation element of the programme. A progression board still needs to be held (next week) to enable all of you who have achieved a minimum mark of 13.5 overall the four modules to progress to the Dissertation element. You will not have had to achieve this in every individual module, the results of all four are added up and divided by four to achieve your overall mark. Anyone achieving the minimum overall mark of 16.5 will have a distinction (DC _ Distinction in the Course Work). It is assumed that everyone who achieves the 13.5 and more mark will automatically progress to Module IR5999, those who have failed to achieve this will exit the programme and graduate with the PG Dip. Should you wish to exit the programme with the award of PG Dip, please let me know.

You should now begin to think about the topic you will choose for your dissertation which you will start in September and any ethical implications this may have. We will email you later in the summer (Summer? We hope for one anyway) with a request for you to submit a 50 word proposal and based on this, you will be allocated a supervisor so that you are ready to run with it once you have matriculated (registered) again in September. Please be aware that everyone will be expected to submit an Ethical Application Form, irrespective of whether or not you will be using only second sources, anything with implications will be presented to the Ethics Committee for approval and this can cause some delay so please take this into consideration.

[...]

It will all go a bit quiet over the next few months so please don't be concerned about this but I hope this will give you some sort of a time frame.

Any queries, please don't hesitate to seek clarification.
All the very best

Well that gives me something to do over the summer.

[Mesozoic Mister Nigel]

I've finally heard back about the dissertation:

Good afternoon, Everyone.

You have now completed the fourth module of the programme and are now ready to progress to the dissertation element of the programme. A progression board still needs to be held (next week) to enable all of you who have achieved a minimum mark of 13.5 overall the four modules to progress to the Dissertation element. You will not have had to achieve this in every individual module, the results of all four are added up and divided by four to achieve your overall mark. Anyone achieving the minimum overall mark of 16.5 will have a distinction (DC _ Distinction in the Course Work). It is assumed that everyone who achieves the 13.5 and more mark will automatically progress to Module IR5999, those who have failed to achieve this will exit the programme and graduate with the PG Dip. Should you wish to exit the programme with the award of PG Dip, please let me know.

You should now begin to think about the topic you will choose for your dissertation which you will start in September and any ethical implications this may have. We will email you later in the summer (Summer? We hope for one anyway) with a request for you to submit a 50 word proposal and based on this, you will be allocated a supervisor so that you are ready to run with it once you have matriculated (registered) again in September. Please be aware that everyone will be expected to submit an Ethical Application Form, irrespective of whether or not you will be using only second sources, anything with implications will be presented to the Ethics Committee for approval and this can cause some delay so please take this into consideration.

[...]

It will all go a bit quiet over the next few months so please don't be concerned about this but I hope this will give you some sort of a time frame.

Any queries, please don't hesitate to seek clarification.
All the very best

Well that gives me something to do over the summer.

Woot! So yeah, that should keep you busy...

[LMNO]

"Ethical implications"?

[Cain]

Actually its about ethics in dissertation writing and research.

[LMNO]

[Doktor Howl]

Nigel's being shy.  She got a medallion and everything.  She joined the Greek army or something.

I don't pretend to understand it.

[Mesozoic Mister Nigel]

Nigel's being shy.  She got a medallion and everything.  She joined the Greek army or something.

I don't pretend to understand it.

Apparently I have alphabet power now, or something.

[Reginald Ret]

Speaking of greek, I still am amazed that in greek rivers are called Potamus.
I love that megalopotamus means big river and cryopotamus means cold river. Greek is just amazing, anyone with a half-decent education can understand 50% of it.
It sounds so potable.

[Mesozoic Mister Nigel]

Speaking of greek, I still am amazed that in greek rivers are called Potamus.
I love that megalopotamus means big river and cryopotamus means cold river. Greek is just amazing, anyone with a half-decent education can understand 50% of it.
It sounds so potable.

Back when I was a young, fresh thing, I wanted to be an etymologist. I love being able to mine the meaning of words from their roots.

Unfortunately, the local college didn't have an etymology degree, nor offered Latin or Greek, so I settled on Computer Information Systems instead.

Then my mom stopped paying for college, and that year they changed the age of dependency for purposes of financial aid from 18 to 23, and I was 19 so I had to drop out.

When I think back to that, I want to cry all over again. I was an A student then, too, except for the B I got in History of Western Civ (most boring class of all time). I might not have stuck with Computer Information Systems because, as it turns out, databases are boring as fuck, but I probably would have gone into networking as soon as it became a thing.

Whole different life path, there. Oh well.

Parents, please never cut your child off from a college education in an attempt to control their life, unless the thing you are trying to control is them wasting their college fund by failing classes. I would have left that guy eventually anyway, and I would have been in a vastly better situation if I had a degree when I did.

[Dubya]

That last paragraph. Spot on.

Though I'd also add don't force them into college if they don't want to go. Wasted five years that way, and now have to jump through all kinds of hoops to get out of default on loans I didn't want to take out in the first place now that I actually want to go.

[Mesozoic Mister Nigel]

That last paragraph. Spot on.

Though I'd also add don't force them into college if they don't want to go. Wasted five years that way, and now have to jump through all kinds of hoops to get out of default on loans I didn't want to take out in the first place now that I actually want to go.

Totally. My kids have college funds... which they can use when they are ready to go because they want to, and not because they feel like they have to.

[Mesozoic Mister Nigel]

I have been stressing the fuck OUT about graduation and the MCAT and grad school applications and all the things I am going to need to do and whether I can actually sustain the load I would have to take to finish my pre-med requirements under this scholarship, and today I realized that I really just don't have to do that. I can proceed without the pre-med (all I'll be missing is two terms of 200-level physics!) and take it relatively easy, wait until Fall to decide whether I want to apply for standalone PhD programs this year or wait until next year and apply for the MD/PhD, and just finish up my damn biology degree.

If I want to go for the MD/PhD, I can get a job for a year, take the two Physics classes at community college, and pay out of pocket. It's not that big of a deal.

If I want to apply for standalone PhD programs, I can either do it this fall or next fall. It'll be fine either way.

I feel a strange sense of relief.