Cycle of life

I realized last night that this year - this April, in fact - will mark the 10th anniversary of my successfully completing and defending my doctoral dissertation.

It doesn't seem that long.

I remember the endless revisions, the drafts that came back to me totally marked in red pen, the times I changed stuff in one draft just to have my adviser* tell me to change it BACK in the next draft (at times it was as if he didn't remember he disapproved of the way I had written it previously). All that work, all that labor.

(*Firefox tells me that "adviser" is correct and "advisor" is wrong, but somehow "advisor" looks more like the correct spelling to me)

But I kept with it. I maintain that a big part of the value of someone having a Ph.D. attached to their name is not so much whatever contribution they made (though part of my dissertation was ultimately published, I have no illusions that it is anything but a tiny scrap of mortar in the wall of knowledge about prairies that we are trying to build), but that they have proven they can make it through the process, that they have the kind of persistence and internal motivation to make it.

Which is why I dig in my heels at any attempts to dumb-down the process or make it "easier." Yes, it can be made "kinder," perhaps, but perhaps it should not be TOO kind, as the academic publishing world is nothing if not cold and heartless.

Wait, here is a dissertation revision in LOLcat form:



Now, my adviser never actually threatened to edit my face (I suspect he would have been in a heap of trouble if he had*), but I do remember a few arguments over style and content and HOW data should be analyzed where we both wound up walking out of the conference room in opposite directions, grumbling that we needed a new adviser - or a new student.

(*And not necessarily trouble of the EEOC kind: I could TOTALLY have taken him as he was shorter than I was, a good 30 pounds lighter, and his reflexes were 30 years slower than mine. Also, I worked out.)

But anyway.

This week I get a thesis from a student to review myself. I am on her committee. And so it continues, the cycle of life: my adviser retired this past year, now I pick up the baton. I will never be quite as busy with students as he was; my department is much smaller and we only have Master's students, and far fewer of them at that. But it's an interesting thing to think about.


****

Did something I'd been dreading this morning: read my evaluation comments. I am pleased to report that there wasn't anything HORRIBLE; one person did complain that I didn't get stuff up on the online presence for the course fast enough (A fair enough criticism; I probably need to set aside time two days a week when I will update the sites, and tell the students that those are the times to expect updates.)

But several of them declared me a "great teacher" or "very caring," which while I can't use them to IMPROVE or anything, are at least reassuring that I'm on a decent path. (One person said that they could think of nothing that needed to be changed in the class). I even got several positive comments from my "hard" class, so that is good.

Most of the negative comments regarded the class over which I have no control of the syllabus/how it's run: several of the students wanted homework assignments in addition to the exams, and I'd agree, but it's out of my control - the committee in charge of the class decided not to do it that way. So I'm not bugged by those comments, beyond the fact that I really DID know better (I wanted homework and lobbied for it).

So, a new semester beckons; I am writing my syllabi today. I hope it is a good one.