Summer: when work actually gets done

[winterkoninkje]

This past semester was a real doozy, for a number of reasons. But now that classes are over, maybe I'll get a chance to talk about some of them. In any case, at least it's done. Now I get to do quals: three months to write three papers good enough to convince people I can write a thesis. I'm looking forward to it; it's been so long since I've been free to do my own research without feeling bad about it encroaching on the work I 'should' be doing.

Comments

[lindseykuper.livejournal.com]

Hooray for being done with classes!

You know, Alex tried to do quals during this last semester, and he was only two-thirds successful. (He still has one of his projects to do.) When CS switched over to its current quals system (which is modeled after the cogsci one), I'm not sure the students were ever quite told that summer is the best time to do quals.

In Alex's particular case, I'm not sure if that knowledge would've helped, since he sees summer as his opportunity to be out of town at internships, so he probably wouldn't have wanted to do it then anyway. But I know at least two other people who's attempted to do their quals during the semester while they have other stuff going on, only to fail and have to try again.