When I accepted my graduate school acceptance (yes, you really do that), I didn't realize that completing my thesis would be the worst, most stressful time of my life. That's not something typically mentioned by the admissions representative. But it's an experience all master's students endure. While completing my thesis, I felt more stress, had more anxiety-fueled breakdowns, and shed more tears than any other moment I can remember.
Don't get me wrong: I love my graduate school program. I wouldn't take back my time there for anything. Given the chance, I wouldn't go back in time and choose another school. I would still apply, still attend, and still cry. After all, it's part of the process--the transition into the world of freelance, so to speak.
It's no secret that the career of a freelance writer is difficult. The business is competitive, cut-throat, and downright dirty. You need thick skin to make it out alive. I suppose that's why completing your thesis is such a difficult task.
Actually writing the thesis was easy. After all, writing is what I want to do for my career. Formatting, packaging, and shipping my thesis to my graduate school, which happens to be 900 miles away, was the hard part.
I'm not one to speak poorly of another. I'm not one to place blame on another. But completing my thesis was just plain awful.
It's common to scare firsties (first semester graduate students) with horror stories of your final semester of graduate school. My friends and mentors mentioned several times that I should share my experience, but their thought to do so wasn't to be mean. It was caused by pure shock.
After all, how could one person be so unlucky??
It all started with a miscommunication.
My graduate school program requires you to have one mentor and one second reader during your final semester. Both need to sign off on your thesis. Both need to agree that you write at a master level. They sign off on a form called "signature pages."
I currently reside in Wisconsin; my second reader resides in San Diego; and my mentor resides in Boston. I mailed my signature pages to my second reader the day after Thanksgiving 2014. The moment I got home from the post office, I private messaged my mentor and second reader, telling the latter that I mailed the pages, and they would arrive on the following Monday. My second reader told me she would be out of town that week, and to avoid delay in shipping, I decided to go back to the post office the next day and mail an entirely different set of signature pages. But this time, I would send them to my mentor first. Our theory was that she would get them, sign off, and mail them to my second reader. My second reader would then receive them by the time she got home from her vacation.
The second set of signature pages should have arrived the following Tuesday, but luckily, they arrived on Monday. However, a USPS worker accidentally put my package in the wrong bin, which then caused my package to be shipped to another town. For four days, no one touched them. The simply sat in the wrong city, at the wrong post office, in the wrong bin. I then played a game of cat and mouse with two different post offices. No one knew where my package was, and no one seemed too worried about it.
I can't tell you how many times I heard "well, it'll get there eventually." Clearly they don't know of the high standards graduate students are given when it comes to their theses.
By the time we received that information, my second reader returned from vacation to find my original package. She then had to toss the enclosed SASEs and instead over-night it from San Diego to Boston (let's not talk about that cost). Thankfully, she used UPS, so the package arrived on time, as promised. My mentor then signed my pages and over-nighted the package to me. She used USPS, and unfortunately, my package once again went astray. I did end up receiving it, but it was a day late. (One day may not sound like much, but to a graduate student on a tight deadline, one day can mean the difference between graduating and not graduating. And I should probably mention that I paid for it to be over-nighted, not second day air...)
After being only two weeks late, my package finally arrived, and I was able to complete the final steps in my thesising (Ha!) process. I printed my thesis on fancy paper, purchased the packaging supplies to ensure it would reach Maine in time, and just as I was putting clips on each individual packet, my heart sank.
My signature pages were formatted incorrectly.
At this point, my thesis was due in one week, and when contemplating my options, I had to account for my terrible luck with the postal service. (I ended up opting to use UPS, because they've never let me down.) There wasn't enough time to even over-night new, correctly formatted signature pages from Wisconsin to Boston to San Diego to Wisconsin to Maine, which is where they need to be by December 19, 2014.
I contacted my mentor, who then contacted the amazing personnel at my graduate school. They understood my situation and gave me a solution that wouldn't break the bank. With my mind at ease, I reprinted my entire thesis (five copies!), packaged, and shipped it to Maine.
It only took a few weeks of hassling to finally announce that I have completed my master's program!
My advice to you is to always plan for the unexpected, and if you're a graduate student, make sure you leave several weeks (if not at least a month) for the shipping process!
You know, the funny thing is that I'm Irish, and I kissed the Blarney Stone while in Ireland when I was 16. That luck is said to follow you to death. Apparently, it didn't follow me during the last month of my graduate school career!
On a lighter note, here are some pictures of my printing process, from beginning to end:
My post on the 31st will be all about resolutions. Seemed fitting for the new year. :)
DISCLAIMER: I have no ill wishes toward the fabulous men and women who work at United States Postal Service (USPS), and you shouldn't either. There was simply a flaw in their system that has (hopefully) been corrected.
Don't get me wrong: I love my graduate school program. I wouldn't take back my time there for anything. Given the chance, I wouldn't go back in time and choose another school. I would still apply, still attend, and still cry. After all, it's part of the process--the transition into the world of freelance, so to speak.
It's no secret that the career of a freelance writer is difficult. The business is competitive, cut-throat, and downright dirty. You need thick skin to make it out alive. I suppose that's why completing your thesis is such a difficult task.
Actually writing the thesis was easy. After all, writing is what I want to do for my career. Formatting, packaging, and shipping my thesis to my graduate school, which happens to be 900 miles away, was the hard part.
I'm not one to speak poorly of another. I'm not one to place blame on another. But completing my thesis was just plain awful.
It's common to scare firsties (first semester graduate students) with horror stories of your final semester of graduate school. My friends and mentors mentioned several times that I should share my experience, but their thought to do so wasn't to be mean. It was caused by pure shock.
After all, how could one person be so unlucky??
It all started with a miscommunication.
My graduate school program requires you to have one mentor and one second reader during your final semester. Both need to sign off on your thesis. Both need to agree that you write at a master level. They sign off on a form called "signature pages."
I currently reside in Wisconsin; my second reader resides in San Diego; and my mentor resides in Boston. I mailed my signature pages to my second reader the day after Thanksgiving 2014. The moment I got home from the post office, I private messaged my mentor and second reader, telling the latter that I mailed the pages, and they would arrive on the following Monday. My second reader told me she would be out of town that week, and to avoid delay in shipping, I decided to go back to the post office the next day and mail an entirely different set of signature pages. But this time, I would send them to my mentor first. Our theory was that she would get them, sign off, and mail them to my second reader. My second reader would then receive them by the time she got home from her vacation.
The second set of signature pages should have arrived the following Tuesday, but luckily, they arrived on Monday. However, a USPS worker accidentally put my package in the wrong bin, which then caused my package to be shipped to another town. For four days, no one touched them. The simply sat in the wrong city, at the wrong post office, in the wrong bin. I then played a game of cat and mouse with two different post offices. No one knew where my package was, and no one seemed too worried about it.
I can't tell you how many times I heard "well, it'll get there eventually." Clearly they don't know of the high standards graduate students are given when it comes to their theses.
By the time we received that information, my second reader returned from vacation to find my original package. She then had to toss the enclosed SASEs and instead over-night it from San Diego to Boston (let's not talk about that cost). Thankfully, she used UPS, so the package arrived on time, as promised. My mentor then signed my pages and over-nighted the package to me. She used USPS, and unfortunately, my package once again went astray. I did end up receiving it, but it was a day late. (One day may not sound like much, but to a graduate student on a tight deadline, one day can mean the difference between graduating and not graduating. And I should probably mention that I paid for it to be over-nighted, not second day air...)
After being only two weeks late, my package finally arrived, and I was able to complete the final steps in my thesising (Ha!) process. I printed my thesis on fancy paper, purchased the packaging supplies to ensure it would reach Maine in time, and just as I was putting clips on each individual packet, my heart sank.
My signature pages were formatted incorrectly.
At this point, my thesis was due in one week, and when contemplating my options, I had to account for my terrible luck with the postal service. (I ended up opting to use UPS, because they've never let me down.) There wasn't enough time to even over-night new, correctly formatted signature pages from Wisconsin to Boston to San Diego to Wisconsin to Maine, which is where they need to be by December 19, 2014.
I contacted my mentor, who then contacted the amazing personnel at my graduate school. They understood my situation and gave me a solution that wouldn't break the bank. With my mind at ease, I reprinted my entire thesis (five copies!), packaged, and shipped it to Maine.
It only took a few weeks of hassling to finally announce that I have completed my master's program!
My advice to you is to always plan for the unexpected, and if you're a graduate student, make sure you leave several weeks (if not at least a month) for the shipping process!
You know, the funny thing is that I'm Irish, and I kissed the Blarney Stone while in Ireland when I was 16. That luck is said to follow you to death. Apparently, it didn't follow me during the last month of my graduate school career!
On a lighter note, here are some pictures of my printing process, from beginning to end:
 |
| These are the incorrectly formatted signature pages. The large margins should be on the left side, not right. |
 |
| Here's the fancy paper I needed to buy for my thesis. |
 |
| Step one in printing five copies of my thesis. |
 |
| One copy down. Four to go! |
 |
| Close up of the first completed copy. |
 |
| This mess is what happens when you're not paying attention. Whoops! |
 |
| The incredibly professional way to flatten paper. |
 |
| All five copies printed and separated! |
 |
| Another angle... |
 |
| And the fancy packaging that kept them straight and clean. |
 |
| Finally, my completed thesis. |
My post on the 31st will be all about resolutions. Seemed fitting for the new year. :)
DISCLAIMER: I have no ill wishes toward the fabulous men and women who work at United States Postal Service (USPS), and you shouldn't either. There was simply a flaw in their system that has (hopefully) been corrected.
Posts
No comments:
Post a Comment