After over six months of research, of which two months were a dead sprint, I finally delivered the first complete version of my thesis. Great… so now what?
I’ve found myself drifting in a doldrum of unguided inactivity. Until I get feedback from my supervisors, I’m not quite sure what I’m supposed to be doing. Of course, as soon as a I get feedback, I’m sure I’ll have more work than I bargained for. However, until my supervisors give me some guidance, I’m left here twiddling my thumbs.
One supervisor is on vacation. Bad timing on my part and could have been avoided had I been earlier in delivering my paper. The other supervisor, significanly more important to my final grade, is currently swamped with other, more pressing, matters. We’ve postponed our meeting to discuss my thesis several times already, finally agreeing on a date that is six and a half weeks since I delivered this version.
Yes, it will take over six weeks before I know how serious the damage is, and how much more time I will need to ultimately finish this thesis. It could be that it only needs some minor grammatical corrections, but really, who are we kidding. I’m going to assume that I will be asked to start from scratch and rewrite the entire thing. Anything less than that will be good news.
So, until that ominous meeting, what the hell am I supposed to be doing? After all, there are only so many way I can rearrange the sock drawer! Can I somehow anticipate the feedback and already begin working on those points? Should I take up a new hobby? Should I finally watch every episode of the Seinfeld… in sequence?
The frustrating postponement of any possible feedback has crushed my hopes for finishing this research by the end of August. That’s very unfortunate. Either I will extend my internship and continue to live off my wife’s savings, or I will have to find a real job and finish this thesis in the evenings and weekends? The fact that this unfortunate delay could have been prevented, had I simply worked harder and delivered earlier, is just salt in my wound.
Well, things are as they are and I can’t change the external factors, which leaves only one option. Namely, to get busy making the best of the situation: perhaps searching for other possible feedback, critically reading my own work and finding room for improvement, or reformatting the paper for final publication with better fonts and graphics. Great… so now what?
