I know that setting up a committee and having committee meetings is an important part of grad school. Your committee can provide guidance and support on a variety of issues ranging from whether to quit, change supervisors to ensuring that you are not stuck with high-risk, impractical project, troubleshooting and fresh eyes. Yet I am terrified of them. I know they are there to support me and want me to succeed, but I still avoided setting up a committee or setting a meeting. Well after some gentle nudging from my PI and a slap on the hand from our department chair, I have done both. I have a thesis committee and will have my first meeting with them on May 19th. Freaking out is putting it mildy.
I also find it hard to troubleshoot experiments and do literature review (ie learning all about my field) simultaneously hard. I'm trying to get some critical data together so that I can put together a mini-proposal by May 6 (2 weeks prior to sending it committee so that PI can review and edit).
The boy is not listening to me. He is continuing to grow and change at exponential speeds. He is so cute and interactive, but totally independent and frustrating at the same time. Stubborn to the core...he gets that from his dad. Also his circadian rhythm is totally in sync with the sun, so we are entering that time of year where waking up at 6am raring to go is the norm and bedtime does not happen till after 9pm. Good time. The fall/winter sucks because my child goes stir crazy in the house and drives me bananas. The spring / summer sucks because my child can.not.wait. to get outside, and thus drives me bananas....
I have hit the age where if I don't run for 2 weeks I can literally see and feel the weight on me. I hate that. It means my hollow leg is filling up.
I am sitting on the toilet reading blogs while the boy baths. He has a new water gun and he squeals in utter and complete joy every time he shoots water at me. Unfortunately, water and Mac ibooks don't go together well.
I get to go get an iPhone on wednesday.
My parents are totally annoying me.
that is all.
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3 months ago
8 comments:
That's a rough week. Sending hugs.
It sounds like things are hectic! I have one piece of unsolicited advice for committee meetings (someone told it to me and I thought it was helpful): Just remember that everyone there wants you to succeed. No one on your committee wants to see you fail. So, they're going to help you along the way.
Anyhow, I hope that things get easier soon!
my parents too... I guess that is the way....
hope you have a better next week!
Mrs.Spit - thankfully this has not happened in a week, but it has happened quickly.
Amanda - I "know" that my committee is there to help me succeed. At least my brain knows, and possibly half my heart. Its just other half of my heart and my gut do not believe it.
chall - I guess it is the way. Hopefully I will re-read these blogs when the monkey is older so that I do not annoy him as much...
SM: about the committee. Just try not to think too much about it. And simultaniuosly reading and troubleshoot - hell, I think everyone is lying about it.... doing it easy I mean. It is hard, and I just take one day a at time (sounds like an alcoholic meeting but still perfectionists ave a problem with not being perfect ;) )
I think and hope all will be fine. Just remember that they (the committee) are there to help out and give criticism and suggestions - and HELP. You¨ll do fine.
and good luck!
i love committee meetings because i walk out of them feeling so motivated and have a really strong direction to go forward- but i despise scheduling them.
My committee has never met yet (two meetings towards the end of student's entire PhD career seems to be the norm here), which makes it interesting to guess what all is expected of me. I hope yours is open with you and provides you with lots of useful feedback!
I really, really like my committee and committee meetings. They have great ideas, and my meetings always seem to extend an hour longer than planned because everyone on it debates amongst themselves the best course of action for me to take. My project is extremely complicated and I have very slow progress as a result, and does not fit in with my actual program AT ALL, so I have an extremely diverse committee, and I find it absolutely fascinating to watch biologists, biochemists, chemists, physicists, and pharmacologists debate what I am doing. They have never once been harsh to me, because as long as I am working hard, they know that it is not MY fault that things don't work as anticipated.
Around here, we are supposed to have committee meetings twice a year. Most students have them once a year. I seem to have them at least three times a year because everyone on my committee enjoys getting together so much!
As long as you can show that you have been putting effort into what you do, a good committee member cannot fault you for an experiment not cooperating as expected. It is the effort that counts, not the results, as obviously we cannot control the outcome of science.
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