Wow. Time sure flies. By the end of this summer, I’ll be THAT second-year doc student. Summer school is right around the corner, so I’m going to just enjoy my time off for now. 3 days ago

Well, I didn’t do any better this semester than last. I’m not sure if the department is going to petition the grad school to let me stay (I’m feeling not). Hopefully I’ll find out soon either way because it’s totally nerve-wracking having no idea if I’m going to be employed next week or not. 1 week ago

Took five years, a five hour rt commute at nights, 3 comprehensive exams and a 368 page dissertation for the phd….but, after 14 years of college, I’m done! 2 weeks ago

Today my thesis has 43 pages! 2 weeks ago

I have research funding for the summer! Woo! 1 month ago

Data is collected and for the next 6 months this will be my priority. Until december of this year I really want to finish this! :) 2 months ago

I almost forgot to report here that I got permission to register, and that I’m now registered with a new student card and a parking disk and all.

Here’s hoping that it will be the last year! 2 months ago

I passed my prelims! Getting closer! 2 months ago

Things have moved a bit faster than I expected. The last time I took the GRE was more than five years ago, so I’m going to re-take it this year to keep my bases covered. Looking forward to diving in to see how the test has changed since last time. (It was computerized when I last took it, but I know it’s underwent major changes over the last 5-7 years!) 2 months ago

Today I submitted the application for extension of study period. Hopefully this will be the final year I need to register. 2 months ago

On Tuesday something important happened. Out of the blue a co-supervisor was appointed for me. My supervisor is too busy to give me the attention he would like to, so he appointed a right-hand man to guide me.

It’s mostly a skeleton, but my thesis stands at 40 pages. 3 months ago

I’ve almost finished a second masters degree—in public health. If I were 10 or 15 years younger, it would be worth pushing on to a DrPH, but I’m totally crippled by student debt. Had I not gone back to school, I would be able to retire comfortably at 67. Servicing my debt will keep me working well into my 70s as is.

Besides, my mind blew a few circuits with the MPH program. Thank goodness I’m on my thesis project and have my classes behind me. 3 months ago

For better or for worse, a PhD in the biomedical sciences requires a certain amount of luck. In my case, that luck has been a long time coming. Today I got to report my first solid piece of reasonably novel data, and from here I ought to be able to build my thesis around what I’ve discovered. As much as I’d like to go into the gritty details, I’m going to wait until I’ve published to disseminate the information so that I don’t jinx myself or end up eating my words later. What I will say is that persistence and endurance appear to be much more important to the completion of a PhD than outright intelligence or productivity. 3 months ago

So I’m pretty well underway on my PhD. I’m doing a project on cancer research and have already published a review article, although my project has been changed since then. So far, this process has been much more difficult than most of the other goals I’ve approached in my life because of its poorly defined nature. It’s hard to outline a proper set of steps to get to the end, because research work is by definition exploring poorly understood areas of knowledge. In my case, that’s meant a whole lot of dead ends as my model systems have failed and my hypotheses have turned out to yield uninteresting results. I’m really hoping to generate some positive data this year, and I have a tentative goal of collecting enough data this calendar year to write up a research article. I’ll be using this blog system to keep up to date and chronicle my progress. 3 months ago