{"id":34,"date":"2008-02-27T23:30:26","date_gmt":"2008-02-28T05:30:26","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.minkhollow.ca\/KB\/Blog\/?p=32"},"modified":"2014-09-12T12:02:17","modified_gmt":"2014-09-12T18:02:17","slug":"the-days-after-my-defense","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/minkhollow.ca\/beckerblog\/2008\/02\/27\/the-days-after-my-defense\/","title":{"rendered":"The Day After (my defense)"},"content":{"rendered":"<span class=\"span-reading-time rt-reading-time\" style=\"display: block;\"><span class=\"rt-label rt-prefix\">Approximate Reading Time: <\/span> <span class=\"rt-time\"> 5<\/span> <span class=\"rt-label rt-postfix\">minutes<\/span><\/span><p class=\"MsoNormal\">I was <em>elated <\/em>when I successfully defended my thesis. I was <em>thrilled <\/em>to hear that the defense went extremely well, and everyone signed off on the dissertation on the spot. As luck would have it, the person in charge of approving the dissertation for the Faculty was the Neutral Chair, and she signed her part on the spot too.<\/p>\n<p class=\"MsoNormal\">Very tidy.<\/p>\n<p class=\"MsoNormal\">Everyone was happy. One of the examiners suggested I publish it as a book, and another commented that she had never before seen this much scholarship in a single thesis. She suggested there might actually be equivalent to several dissertations. Needless to say, I was thrilled.<\/p>\n<p class=\"MsoNormal\"><o:p> <\/o:p><\/p>\n<p class=\"MsoNormal\">A few days later, I made a few very minor changes (mostly just fixing typos) and sent my thesis off to the printers. I prepared the necessary paperwork according to the instructions on the University websites (very helpful) and continued on. I was all set&#8230;.. (HA!!!!! Not so fast, Slick.)<\/p>\n<p class=\"MsoNormal\"><img decoding=\"async\" src=\"http:\/\/adisneycruise.disney.go.com\/media\/dcl_v0206\/en_US\/media\/onboard\/aboutOurShips\/AboutOurShipsThumbC.jpg\" align=\"right\" width=\"200\" \/>Flying high from having pleased my committee with my work, I went off on a lovely 7-day cruise in the <st1:place w:st=\"on\">Caribbean<\/st1:place> on the <a href=\"http:\/\/disneycruise.disney.go.com\/dcl\/en_US\/home\/home?name=HomePage\">Disney Cruise Ship Magic<\/a>. And it really was.<\/p>\n<p class=\"MsoNormal\">Magic.<span>  <\/span><\/p>\n<p class=\"MsoNormal\"><a href=\"http:\/\/disney.go.com\/index\">Disney <\/a>sure seems to understand organizational management. Even when things go awry, they know exactly how to deal with it.<\/p>\n<p class=\"MsoNormal\">Don&#8217;t get me wrong &#8211; things still happen; but stuff is fixed or made better. They win, and so do we.<\/p>\n<p class=\"MsoNormal\">Very professional.<\/p>\n<p class=\"MsoNormal\"><o:p> <\/o:p><\/p>\n<p class=\"MsoNormal\">Then&#8230;&#8230;..<!--more--><\/p>\n<p class=\"MsoNormal\">Welcome to my world (well, it turned out to be a bit more like the <a href=\"http:\/\/www.imdb.com\/title\/tt0052520\/\">Twilight Zone<\/a>, really).<\/p>\n<p class=\"MsoNormal\">I came to campus today to pick up my thesis and get it finished up.<\/p>\n<p class=\"MsoNormal\">That turned out to be an adventure of an entirely different kind.<\/p>\n<p class=\"MsoNormal\"> Here a just a few of the highlights of my morning (I have removed the name of my faculty to avoid embarrassing them, and so I might actually get to graduate):<\/p>\n<ul style=\"margin-top: 0in\" type=\"disc\">\n<li class=\"MsoNormal\">University      Printing Services now advertises that they bind theses but they have NO      idea what colour each faculty requires. They seem quite uninterested in      finding out.<\/li>\n<li class=\"MsoNormal\">I had      3 single-side copies printed because the Grad Studies website says they      need one (unbound), and <strong><em>&lt;my faculty&gt;<\/em><\/strong> website says      they need 2 (unbound). (Last time I looked, 1 + 2 = 3) When I took them      upstairs to <strong><em>&lt;my faculty&gt;<\/em><\/strong>, I was informed that <strong><em>&lt;my      faculty&gt;<\/em><\/strong> only wants only one AND that it must be bound. They      were surprised to hear that their very own website says <strong>2 unbound copies<\/strong>. On top of that,      I was informed that I needed to take the unbound copy over to Grad Studies      so that they could approve it for binding. So, off I went with three      single-sided copies of my admittedly verbose (450-page) thesis across to      the other side of campus (I guess the exercise is good for me). [Note that      the online instructions do NOT mention anything about binding the <strong><em>&lt;my      faculty&gt;<\/em><\/strong> copy, and the nice ladies in <strong><em>&lt;my faculty&gt;<\/em><\/strong>      office expressed surprise when I said that the website says, &#8220;Submit      two unbound copies of the thesis to the Faculty of Graduate Studies along      with the Thesis Clearance form.&#8221;]. Have they never read their own      stuff?<\/li>\n<li class=\"MsoNormal\">After      a lovely trek across campus (OK, not really), I arrive at Grad Studies,      who says, they know NOTHING about any requirement for approval for binding      (which means I carried 2 of the copies of my Big Fat Thesis over for      nothing), AND that my title page is formatted wrong. I will have to redo      it. Turns out, the template THEY provide is wrong. No apologies for      providing misleading information, just an admonition for not doing it      right.<\/li>\n<li class=\"MsoNormal\">Then,      one of the forms they so kindly provide on their website prints off as 2      pages \u2013 and when I gave it to them, all signed and proper, they threw it      out and told me it had to be all on one page. When I told them THEIR      webform, which is locked and cannot be edited, printed on two pages, they      simply said &#8220;Oh, it needs to be a single page.&#8221; I have to re-do      all the title pages AND I have to re-do the CD for the National Library. Again,      no apology for wasting my time and paper, and no acknowledgement that they      bear any responsibility to get things right. How silly of me to believe      the policies published on the official Grad Studies website.<\/li>\n<li class=\"MsoNormal\">Next,      these same official policies tell me I can put the electronic copy      intended for the National Library in an envelope, which must be 9X12 and      labeled just so. I followed the instructions to the letter. In 30 years in      computer science I have learned a thing or two about executing      instructions. HowEVER, for some reason, the envelope I used for the stuff      for the National Library (made of recycled <em>plain<\/em> un-dyed paper, 9X12, as per official instructions) was not      acceptable, so the label I made with all my info on it, and the envelope      was tossed; and they handed me a brand new envelope (which didn\u2019t even      have the UofC address on it) and I had to write the information again in      pen. With the ink on my brand new PhD still fresh, I tried to see how the      \u2018correct\u2019 envelope, which is plain brown, but otherwise identical to mine      was better than what I had used. I failed.<\/li>\n<li class=\"MsoNormal\">Here\u2019s      the kicker: next, they ask me for my signature pages. OOOOOPS! It turns      out I DIDN&#8217;T have the signature pages with me. Being rather new to this      process I had forgotten to ask for them when I was at <strong><em>&lt;my faculty&gt;<\/em><\/strong>      and, <em>of course<\/em>, no-one at <strong><em>&lt;my      faculty&gt;<\/em><\/strong> thought to mention it. <span> <\/span>As a result, I walked over to Grad Studies      without the signature pages. Nothing happens without the signature pages. That      meant I had to walk all the way back across campus to <strong><em>&lt;my faculty&gt;<\/em><\/strong>      to fetch them, so I could once again walk <em>back<\/em> over to Grad Studies to give it to them. They won&#8217;t help      me do it &#8211; I asked. They said they get SO many theses that they really can&#8217;t      keep track of all these things&#8230;.. Silly me, I kind of thought keeping      track of theses was, in fact, one of their jobs (them being the FACULTY OF      GRADUATE STUDIES and all), but I suppose it is too much to ask that they      actually DO their job sensibly. This isn&#8217;t Disney after all, just a      University.<\/li>\n<li class=\"MsoNormal\">When I      arrive back at <strong><em>&lt;my faculty&gt;<\/em><\/strong>, I ask them for my signature pages      (they look genuinely surprised when I tell them I don\u2019t have them), and they      go search for them. After a while they return without them and say,      &#8220;Gee, we don&#8217;t have them. We sent them off to your external examiner      for signing just last week.&#8221; This, by the way, would have been kind      of handy to know when I was in there the FIRST time. My defense was 2 \u00bd      weeks ago, and because it went so smoothly, all the paperwork was signed      on the spot. I was assured they would send the pages off to be signed      right away. I asked why it took so long for them to get sent out, to which      they responded, &#8220;We&#8217;ve been busy.&#8221;<\/li>\n<\/ul>\n<p class=\"MsoNormal\" style=\"margin-left: 0.5in\">Of COURSE. How silly of me <em>again<\/em>. The division dealing with the faculty\u2019s grad students can\u2019t be expected to send papers where they should go <em>right away<\/em>.<\/p>\n<p class=\"MsoNormal\" style=\"margin-left: 0.5in\"><o:p> <\/o:p><\/p>\n<p class=\"MsoNormal\">There was nothing else I could do but go home and wait for my signature pages. SO I collected all my stuff, and went home.<\/p>\n<p class=\"MsoNormal\">I guess I will have to try this again another day. Maybe I\u2019ll even have a new funny story to tell after that.<\/p>\n<p>Very <a href=\"http:\/\/www.urbandictionary.com\/define.php?term=Kafkaesque\">Kafkaesque<\/a>.<\/p>\n<p class=\"MsoNormal\"><o:p> <\/o:p><\/p>\n<p class=\"MsoNormal\">Does it strike you as ironic that everything at the original \u201c<a href=\"http:\/\/disney.go.com\/characters\/mickey\/index.html\">Mickey Mouse<\/a> Operation\u201d (i.e. Disney) works like clockwork, yet a venerable scholarly institution like the University hardly works at all?<\/p>\n<p class=\"MsoNormal\">Attaching the label \u201cMickey Mouse Operation\u201d to my university turns out to be an insult to Disney. Please accept my sincerest apologies, Disney.<\/p>\n<\/p>\n<div class='wp_likes' id='wp_likes_post-34'><a class='like' href=\"javascript:wp_likes.like(34);\" title='' ><img decoding=\"async\" src=\"http:\/\/minkhollow.ca\/beckerblog\/wp-content\/plugins\/wp-likes\/images\/like.png\" alt='' border='0'\/><\/a><span class='text'>Be the first to like.<\/span><\/p>\n<div class='like' ><a href=\"javascript:wp_likes.like(34);\">Like<\/a><\/div>\n<div class='unlike' ><a href=\"javascript:wp_likes.unlike(34);\">Unlike<\/a><\/div>\n<\/div>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p><span class=\"span-reading-time rt-reading-time\" style=\"display: block;\"><span class=\"rt-label rt-prefix\">Approximate Reading Time: <\/span> <span class=\"rt-time\"> 5<\/span> <span class=\"rt-label rt-postfix\">minutes<\/span><\/span>I was elated when I successfully defended my thesis. I was thrilled to hear that the defense went extremely well, and everyone signed off on the dissertation on the spot. As luck would have it, the person in charge of &hellip; <a class=\"more-link\" href=\"https:\/\/minkhollow.ca\/beckerblog\/2008\/02\/27\/the-days-after-my-defense\/\">Continue reading <span class=\"meta-nav\">&rarr;<\/span><\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"jetpack_post_was_ever_published":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_access":"","_jetpack_dont_email_post_to_subs":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_tier_id":0,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paywalled_content":false,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paid_content":false,"footnotes":"","jetpack_publicize_message":"","jetpack_publicize_feature_enabled":true,"jetpack_social_post_already_shared":false,"jetpack_social_options":{"image_generator_settings":{"template":"highway","default_image_id":0,"font":"","enabled":false},"version":2}},"categories":[9,14,24],"tags":[388,393],"class_list":["post-34","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-educational-technology","category-general","category-teaching-learning","tag-academia","tag-teaching-learning"],"jetpack_publicize_connections":[],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"","jetpack_shortlink":"https:\/\/wp.me\/p4Hsb6-y","jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"jetpack-related-posts":[{"id":254,"url":"https:\/\/minkhollow.ca\/beckerblog\/2009\/09\/26\/on-dissertations-and-theses\/","url_meta":{"origin":34,"position":0},"title":"On Dissertations and Theses","author":"Katrin Becker","date":"September 26, 2009","format":false,"excerpt":"When I was writing my thesis I looked for examples of dissertations to get some ideas about how to formulate my own - you know general style, chapter organization, etc. It was suggested that I go to my school's library and look at the theses that had been completed there\u2026","rel":"","context":"In &quot;Educational Technology&quot;","block_context":{"text":"Educational Technology","link":"https:\/\/minkhollow.ca\/beckerblog\/category\/educational-technology\/"},"img":{"alt_text":"","src":"","width":0,"height":0},"classes":[]},{"id":3387,"url":"https:\/\/minkhollow.ca\/beckerblog\/2013\/05\/05\/how-not-to-write-a-phd-thesis-general-times-higher-education\/","url_meta":{"origin":34,"position":1},"title":"How not to write a PhD thesis | General | Times Higher Education","author":"Katrin Becker","date":"May 5, 2013","format":false,"excerpt":"How not to write a PhD thesis | General | Times Higher Education. Many of these apply to papers submitted for publication, generally. I have lost track of how many game papers I have reviewed where the authors had an idea, did what appeared to be a quickie Google search\u2026","rel":"","context":"In &quot;Educational Technology&quot;","block_context":{"text":"Educational Technology","link":"https:\/\/minkhollow.ca\/beckerblog\/category\/educational-technology\/"},"img":{"alt_text":"","src":"","width":0,"height":0},"classes":[]},{"id":5908,"url":"https:\/\/minkhollow.ca\/beckerblog\/2015\/10\/14\/worth-sharing-educational-research-methodology-framework-dr-patrick-blessinger\/","url_meta":{"origin":34,"position":2},"title":"Worth Sharing: Educational Research Methodology Framework | Dr. Patrick Blessinger","author":"Katrin Becker","date":"October 14, 2015","format":false,"excerpt":"It may be helpful for any of your students taking a research methods course or working on a research based thesis or dissertation. It is particularly useful for those in education or the social sciences but may also have some applicability to those in the humanities or professional disciplines like\u2026","rel":"","context":"In &quot;Academia&quot;","block_context":{"text":"Academia","link":"https:\/\/minkhollow.ca\/beckerblog\/category\/academia\/"},"img":{"alt_text":"","src":"","width":0,"height":0},"classes":[]},{"id":1810,"url":"https:\/\/minkhollow.ca\/beckerblog\/2011\/08\/02\/instruction-makes-student-attitudes-on-computational-modeling-worse-caballero-thesis-part-3-%c2%ab-computing-education-blog\/","url_meta":{"origin":34,"position":3},"title":"On Mark Guzdial&#8217;s Post: Instruction makes student attitudes on computational modeling worse.","author":"Katrin Becker","date":"August 2, 2011","format":false,"excerpt":"From Mark Guzdial's Blog today: Instruction makes student attitudes on computational modeling worse: Caballero thesis part 3 \u00ab Computing Education Blog. I think this is pretty interesting but I can't say I'm surprised. My reaction: Given the experiences I've had with what the majority of CS professors\/instructors teach, my first\u2026","rel":"","context":"In &quot;General&quot;","block_context":{"text":"General","link":"https:\/\/minkhollow.ca\/beckerblog\/category\/general\/"},"img":{"alt_text":"","src":"","width":0,"height":0},"classes":[]},{"id":5781,"url":"https:\/\/minkhollow.ca\/beckerblog\/2015\/09\/27\/worth-sharing-rex-murphy-institutes-of-lower-education-national-post\/","url_meta":{"origin":34,"position":4},"title":"Worth Sharing: Rex Murphy: Institutes of lower education | National Post","author":"Katrin Becker","date":"September 27, 2015","format":false,"excerpt":"Some universities \u2014 and, in particularly, some humanities departments \u2014 have, over the last few decades, wandered far from the primary purpose of what these institutions were designed for: to teach what is worth knowing; to train the intellect; to acquaint students with, and help them appreciate, the glories of\u2026","rel":"","context":"In &quot;Academia&quot;","block_context":{"text":"Academia","link":"https:\/\/minkhollow.ca\/beckerblog\/category\/academia\/"},"img":{"alt_text":"","src":"","width":0,"height":0},"classes":[]},{"id":2819,"url":"https:\/\/minkhollow.ca\/beckerblog\/2012\/09\/21\/theories-of-games-and-interaction-for-design-3-how-can-we-tell-a-good-game\/","url_meta":{"origin":34,"position":5},"title":"Theories of Games and Interaction for Design (3:  How can we tell a \u201cGood\u201d game?)","author":"Katrin Becker","date":"September 21, 2012","format":false,"excerpt":"This is a re-posting of my reflection for the first course of the Graduate Certificate Program in Serious Game Design and Research at Michigan State University. Please note: these posts are not intended as any kind of commentary on or assessment of the course I\u2019m taking, or its instructor, OR\u2026","rel":"","context":"In &quot;Educational Technology&quot;","block_context":{"text":"Educational Technology","link":"https:\/\/minkhollow.ca\/beckerblog\/category\/educational-technology\/"},"img":{"alt_text":"","src":"","width":0,"height":0},"classes":[]}],"jetpack_likes_enabled":true,"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/minkhollow.ca\/beckerblog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/34","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/minkhollow.ca\/beckerblog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/minkhollow.ca\/beckerblog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/minkhollow.ca\/beckerblog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/minkhollow.ca\/beckerblog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=34"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/minkhollow.ca\/beckerblog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/34\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":643,"href":"https:\/\/minkhollow.ca\/beckerblog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/34\/revisions\/643"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/minkhollow.ca\/beckerblog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=34"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/minkhollow.ca\/beckerblog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=34"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/minkhollow.ca\/beckerblog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=34"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}