October 8th Graduation...

My advisor was gone for two weeks, first in Los Alamos for a workshop and then in Europe for a thesis defense. Whenever he returns from extended returns, I normally stop by his office to a) say hello and b) catch-up in terms of where I am in research. I still send reports and results during his absence, although the usual responses are silence or confusion due to miscommunication. The miscommunication coming from my part of still learning how to convey information across correctly and with the least complexity.

However, the one thing I did not expect to discuss today was the Overview. In the Material Science and Engineering Department of Carnegie Mellon University, the overview is the equivalent to a practice thesis defense. It can be either public or private, however one presents their work to a committee, who then decide what additional work is necessary to reinforce the arguments and research done during the student's graduate career. The actual thesis defense should then follow anywhere from 6-12 months after the overview, depending on the amount of research to still be performed as well as the number of revisions to be made.

Needless to say, I was not expecting that to come up, and now remained troubled and awake at 1:00 thinking of what I have accomplished, what still needs to be accomplished, and what I myself, personally want to see.

These are all important things not just in the timeline and requirements for graduation, but also how am I preparing myself for the next step after my PhD. Which led to our second discussion topic as well, what was I planning to do after CMU? My advisors intention was clearly not to scare me, but to start putting the gears into motion and thinking about what I would like to see and do.

Being caught off-gaurd on all of these though has sent my brain into a panic mode and anxious about what the future does hold. It has brought back the usual question of, why did I come for a PhD again in the first place? Do my aspirations of becoming a professor still hold or not?

Like always, I suppose all the answers will come with time...