Trying to remain calm...

[Snakegal]

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I know this isn't a typical thread in this forum, but I just need a quick post so that I can try not to let my nerves get to me. I defend my thesis tomorrow at noon and I'm slightly stressed (to put it mildly...)🙂

Hopefully I'll defend tomorrow, I won't have too many major revisions on my thesis and my committee will sign off on it. I have a few more hoops to jump through and then one more conference in Memphis next week.

If everything goes ok, then I'll be done and can get to focusing on my vet school apps!!!

*crossing fingers!* 😀

 

[dyachei]

I know this isn't a typical thread in this forum, but I just need a quick post so that I can try not to let my nerves get to me. I defend my thesis tomorrow at noon and I'm slightly stressed (to put it mildly...)🙂

Hopefully I'll defend tomorrow, I won't have too many major revisions on my thesis and my committee will sign off on it. I have a few more hoops to jump through and then one more conference in Memphis next week.

If everything goes ok, then I'll be done and can get to focusing on my vet school apps!!!

*crossing fingers!* 😀

Good luck!

 

[clawsbeatskin]

Good Luck, Snakegal!

I was soooo nervous when I defended. My committee was actually pretty harsh, well, one of the members was. He refused to sign off on it, and even then it all worked out in the end. Looking back, what I had considered to be an incredible disaster really turned out to be a mere hiccup in the grand scheme of things. Of course, I was pretty inconsolable when it happened 😛

Not that I think you'll have any difficulties, of course, but just know that even if you do, it's not the end of the world! Now whenever I'm nervous about anything, I just try and remember that.

Let us know how you do tomorrow!

 

[cuitlamiztli]

To echo dyachei: Good luck!!

 

[WishingnHoping]

GOOD LUCK!!! I defend the end of May so I'm just dreading that ... but I have to get my thesis done before that can even happen! 😱 I am SO stressed out over getting it done. I'm into vet school -- can't I just ignore the thesis? I mean seriously ... do I HAVE to graduate? 😉

So I feel your pain and good luck again. I'm sure you'll do fine! It's not as bad as it seems, I think. 😛

 

[nyanko]

My undergrad honors thesis defense was awful. Two members of my committee were really really hard on me and asked me questions that modern science has not yet answered, then reprimanded my thesis chair (!) when he tried to interject such, saying they wanted ME to answer. I felt like I was going to cry when they sent me out to deliberate, but I passed and you'll make it through too!

Good luck! 🙂

 

[WishingnHoping]

Nyanko, don't say that!!!! I have to defend my undergraduate honors thesis the end of next month ... ARGH! I hope mine doesn't go like that ... 🙁

 

[Moonpaw]

To be honest, all you guys have WAAAAY more guts than me. I pretty much purposely decided NOT to pursue honors in my major, mainly because
1) I wanted to take a break from the 'honors' thing for once in my life, and
2) I didn't want to spend the end of my senior year worrying about defending my thesis.

So in short, you have the strength to get this far; I have no doubt that you'll do well. but GOOD LUCK!!!! all the same 😀

 

[wi girl]

I suppose our thesis program is much easier here. We have to write, it goes out to faculty for comments, we have to respond to comments (how we would address this concern). We also have to do a poster talk.

No defense, but I like this system because it teaches you about publishing (the reviewing and addressing comments stuff).

Ah this is undergrad, ps. Obviously for a PhD, you need to have a dissertation defense. (Sorry!)

Best of luck though!




Sidenote: I may sound really chipper because I just finished writing MINE, and its sent off to my PI for revisions. Yay! Just editing and then I'm (essentially) done!! 🙂

 

[Snakegal]

That's so great to hear wi girl!! I hope I'm as "chipper" as you tomorrow afternoon.

I have to write up my thesis (which I've done) and my committee will slaughter it and give it back to me tomorrow so I won't know how many revisions I'll need 'til then. It does make it a little difficult when my advisor told me a month ago when I gave him a draft of my work that he didn't have time to read my chapters.

When I gave my thesis to my committee last Friday, he immediately found that my discussion was too short and he pretty much crapped all over it right then and there. I had to spend last weekend revising it and giving my committee a "new discussion". If only he would have done his job and read it a month ago... I wouldn't have been pulling my hair out at the last minute making huge revisions like this.


I wish everyone defending next month good luck! I have to have my thesis turned into the dean by April 18th if I want to graduate this semester...

WishingnHoping - I know that if you skip out on your thesis you'll kick yourself in the butt later... However, I must admit that if I was already accepted..... 😉

I just ran through it for my husband and it's the last time until noon tomorrow. Then it will just be revisions (oh, and the meeting I have to present at in TN next week...).

I'll let you know how it goes...

-Snakegal

 

[Aves]

Good luck! I feel your pain; I'm working on my thesis as we speak. I'm sure you'll do wonderfully though. Just show them that you are enthusiastic about your research. If you project an air of confidence and enthusiasm, they will have no choice but to respond in kind 😉. Let us know how it goes!

 

[nyanko]

When I gave my thesis to my committee last Friday, he immediately found that my discussion was too short and he pretty much crapped all over it right then and there. I had to spend last weekend revising it and giving my committee a "new discussion". If only he would have done his job and read it a month ago... I wouldn't have been pulling my hair out at the last minute making huge revisions like this.

Argh I know how you feel. I did mine over the summer last year, so my committee chair/adviser was out of town for a whole month and didn't come back until a month before the defense deadline. I had written something while he was gone, and I gave it to him when he came back then a week later he looked at it for the first time with me in his office, looked at me, printed out one page of it, took out a huge red marker and drew a huge line through the whole page, wrote CRAP! DO AGAIN! on top and handed it back to me with his stupid little Australian smirk. I wanted to die. Luckily, I picked up on it pretty quickly and finished in time, somehow.

So basically what I'm saying is that no matter how bad things seem, they'll work out and you'll come out better for it. I know I did. 🙂

 

[cinc0009]

Wow, good luck!
I never had to do a thesis. It was our choice to do a thesis or an internship. So I spent my summer in Australia working at a zoo! 😀 Much more fun if you ask me!

 

[Etherealsheep]

Ack! I feel your pain! I'm running completely behind on finishing my undergrad honors thesis! It's due in less than 3 weeks and I haven't set a defense date yet 😱 I'm hoping to get the major revisions done before the actual defense day...and my college is fairly lenient about it. My defense committee is composed of professors seem very nice and hopefully will let me sneak by without too much trouble. Although, I feel like my discussion is complete crap... but then I guess it doesn't matter if I pass or not. I'm already accepted to vet school. C average = going on to vet school!!

Good luck to everyone!

 

[Steelmagghia]

Ack! I feel your pain! I'm running completely behind on finishing my undergrad honors thesis! It's due in less than 3 weeks and I haven't set a defense date yet 😱 I'm hoping to get the major revisions done before the actual defense day...and my college is fairly lenient about it. My defense committee is composed of professors seem very nice and hopefully will let me sneak by without too much trouble. Although, I feel like my discussion is complete crap... but then I guess it doesn't matter if I pass or not. I'm already accepted to vet school. C average = going on to vet school!!

Good luck to everyone!

Oh my gosh, we are SO the same person, like exactly.
I.....have six of my fifteen pages done. 😳 I've had that much done for like, three weeks now.
Shame.

 

[Electrophile]

Good luck! I got honors in biology for doing 2 semesters of research and finishing with a high enough GPA, but no thesis. I didn't dare try to get honors in my religious studies major. No thank you! 😀 It would have had to have been like 30-40+ pages, no doubt. Would have been fun, but...

I about wanted to kill my faculty adviser for my masters thesis defense though. He showed up late to my defense cause he was in a meeting with someone else. Story of my life. 🙄🙄🙄 However, it did feel really good signing that paper and getting the bound copy (which was twice as long and better written than the thesis the other masters to PhD student's in our lab wrote). 🙄 😀

But yes, DEFINITELY do the defense for the masters and all that! One of my friends in our class in vet school is still slogging through finishing her masters thesis from before vet school. Yuck! I had to put my foot down that I was defending in May instead of August for that precise reason. However, I still don't have a published paper out. 😡 Will have to work on that this summer...

 

[nyanko]

Oh my gosh, we are SO the same person, like exactly.
I.....have six of my fifteen pages done. 😳 I've had that much done for like, three weeks now.
Shame.

Fifteen pages??! My undergrad honors thesis was 85 pages. Finish your 15 and be glad. 😛

(Jeez I sound like an old lady here...IN MY DAY...a year ago!! ARRGH!)

 

[Steelmagghia]

Fifteen pages??! My undergrad honors thesis was 85 pages. Finish your 15 and be glad. 😛

(Jeez I sound like an old lady here...IN MY DAY...a year ago!! ARRGH!)

Haha, they don't want to have to READ 85 pages. If I could write that much it would actually be easier for me...I could fully explain all my thoughts.
This part isn't so bad, except I'm stuck and I don't know where to go.
The worst part was the annotated bib for 40+ sources and the Journal reviews and focused abstracts of three of my sources. ALL MY SOURCES ALREADY HAVE ABSTRACTS! Haha.

 

[nyanko]

The bad part for me is that I naturally write in a very concise manner, so it was hella hard for me to expand my thoughts properly in a way that my adviser was okay with. He must have told me 1000 times to "lead someone through it by the nose" and I was just like "well I understand so why wouldn't they!?" So I overexplained everything to the point that I thought was overkill and then and only then did he say it was okay. Sheesh..

Journal reviews and stuff for sources? I didn't have to do anything like that. Although my whole background section was basically a literature review of Everything That Is Known About Polyamine Transport Ever (tm). 😉

 

[Snakegal]

Hey all! Sorry I haven't updated you sooner! I did my defense. My husband said it was the most confident he had seen me go through it. I was actually having conversations with myself in my head while I was talking!! My committee said that everything was in order and just some basic revisions. I revised and resubmitted and then revised again. I left on Thurs for a conference in Memphis so this morning was the first time I could resubmit it. My advisor looked it over and signed off on it. Another member of my committee signed off on it today, too. I'm still trying to track down my third member, but I already gave a copy to the chair so he can sign off as soon as I can get the page to him. Then it's just the dean that's left and I'll will have graduated!!! I'm sooooo excited. I still have to work in the lab though. I have a few more snakes I need to breed and bleed before I submit the paper for publication. My thesis all told ended up being 71 pages. I don't want to write anything for awhile!!! 😀

I'll be soooo happy when I get it bound! Now I just have to get into vet school!!😉

 

[weirdhobo]

Wow congrats!

probably a stupid question but:
Are thesises (whatever the plural is lol) required for all/most majors and colleges?

 

[twelvetigers]

I don't think so. Usually just honors students (those papers are often quite a bit shorter) and grad students. I know *I* didn't have to write a paper. Haha.

 

[weirdhobo]

twelvetigers:

You have no idea how relieved I am to hear that lol! thanks!

 

[CalpardNY]

I think theses requirements vary by school!

I know at my college you could only get honors by writing a thesis, it was thus voluntary/elective to write one, you needed above a specific gpa to qualify, and also needed an advisor. Also the length varied by major/subject (i.e. science papers based on research were much shorter while i had a friend write a 150+ page history and gov/law paper.

My friend who graduated from Princeton said that everyone there had to write one to graduate but it wasn't the same sort of "thesis" as students at my school completed.

So i think its not something to stress over but it varies a lot by school!

 

[twelvetigers]

Here, the honors program is something you join based on high school stats, andthere are several requirements to stay in it, including courseload, taking honors courses, and maintaining a GPA. You can write the thesis JR or SR year, and it's required to graduate with the honors part. As a regular Zoology major, we didnt have to do a thesis. I guess you should just look at Davis's website or call someone for info? Or, just wait and see. You'll be okay with or without one.

 

[rtc86]

I'm in the college of Agriculture and Environmental Sciences (Animal science major) at UC Davis and to graduate w/ honors one does not need to write a thesis, only have a certain gpa. But i have a friend in the college of letters and sciences at ucd who in order to graduate w/ honors, needs to write a thesis so even w/in universities, there are varied requirements for graduating w/ honors. altho some majors have theses as a requirement in order to graduate at all, so it varies a lot.

 

[nyanko]

There are a couple different sorts of honors distinctions that went on diplomas at UCF. The standard Latin "cum laude" ones went by college within the University and were determined solely by your GPA (top 10%, 5%-magna, 2.5%-summa).

Then there were two programs through the Burnett Honors College at UCF, listed below.

University Honors which was only open to you if you entered UCF as a freshman or community college transfer student. You had to maintain a certain GPA and take honors symposium courses and a certain amount of regular honors courses such as Honors General Biology.

The Honors in the Major option was available to all students, even transfer students and is the one I know the most about, since it's the one that I did. The requirements were as follows:
Maintain above a 3.2 UCF GPA
Maintain above a 3.2 in ALL upper division courses regardless of institution
Maintain above a 3.7 in your major courses.
Write a proposal for independent research in your field that you will do with an adviser.
Complete a thesis on your research - write and defend, to be published by the UCF library. This involved selecting a committee and the same sort of process that Masters students use, except less rigorous (unless you have a bunch of jerks on your committee 😡 )

So at least at UCF there were a lot of different options for "honors distinction" at graduation.

edit: Oh yeah, and congrats to Snakegal for finishing! Feels good doesn't it?

Now you can concentrate on those vet school apps. Sorry. 🙁

 

[PlantersPunch]

Here at UMass anyone with a 3.5 graduates cum laude. In order to be magna or summa cum laude you have to do a thesis or "culminating experience"😉 either through a special course or courses and fulfill several requirements for the honors college.

Then you have to get at least a B+ your "culminating experience". Thennnn if your gpa is above a 3.8, you graduate summa cum laude (My fingers are crossed) or if your gpa is 3.5-3.79 you graduate magna cum laude.


So basically anyone can graduate cum laude or with honors but to get high honors you have to do a whole crap load of other stuff. 🙄

P.S. nyanko, I noticed that you wrote that you're school had magna as higher honors than summa, I wonder why my school does it the opposite. I figured it would be pretty universal 😕

 

[weirdhobo]

rtc were you in honors for UCD? Is it worth joining?

 

[Steelmagghia]

I don't think so. Usually just honors students (those papers are often quite a bit shorter) and grad students. I know *I* didn't have to write a paper. Haha.

For my college, it depends on your major. ALL honors students have to do a thesis. B.S. Bio majors do but not B.A. Bios. Education majors don't, but Humanities majors do.
It's very confusing here. 🙂
P.S. The plural of thesis is theses. I hate words like that....like moose. Or a computer mouse. Or fish. Annoying plurals indeed. 🙂

 

[rtc86]

I might be graduating cum laude (cross-fingers), my freshman 1st qtr grades are still pulling me down 🙁 otherwise i'd be for sure getting at least cum laude. Honors is not something you join in college of ag and e at ucd. If ur gpa is in the top 16% of ur graduating class u get honors. U can join the Davis Honors challenge but it's just involves taking honors classes and getting extra resources w/o graduating w/ honors necessarily, u don't really need to take it but u can check it out online and see if it's something for u.

 

[nyanko]

P.S. nyanko, I noticed that you wrote that you're school had magna as higher honors than summa, I wonder why my school does it the opposite. I figured it would be pretty universal 😕

No I think I just mixed it up. 🙂 It was late, and I got neither of those because the cutoff for my college was ridiculously high because it was full of overachieving pre-meds like our neighbors over at the pre-allo forums.

Here are the cutpoints for this year. It's up to 3.795 for my school this year (Burnett School of Biomedical Sciences) just for cum laude honors!

So at UMass I would have probably gotten magna honors and at UCF I had to settle for the Honors in the Major program and no Latin distinction. 😉

 

[weirdhobo]

oo congrats rtc ^_^ Your gpa must have been something great if you might get cum laude!

 

[rtc86]

umm, not really. i've an average gpa of an applicant. i'd have a better one if not for freshman yr tho...sigh

 

[PlantersPunch]

So at UMass I would have probably gotten magna honors and at UCF I had to settle for the Honors in the Major program and no Latin distinction. 😉

Yeah, I appreciate how they keep the cut offs and ignore the percentages getting above the cut off because we have our fair share of pre-meds too 🙂