Weird Story

[elite1]

A student at my friend's phd program said that a was going to sue her psychology professor. It turns out that the student emailed the second draft of her dissertation to the professor over a year before it had to be completed. Anyway, she saved an email from the professor saying he would look at it and get it back to her shortly. However, he took 5 months to do so and, because of this, she ran out of time to complete her dissertation. She then sued the school (they caved before it went to court) saying that she completed all the other hurdles without trouble and did not finish the disseration because of the prof's delays in getting it back to her. She had saved all the email she sent to the professor and his responses, so she would have proof of the timeline.

The reason I post this is to tell all graduate students to ALWAYS save all your e-mail correspondence with your professor(s).

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[Therapist4Chnge]

I learned a great lesson while in business (by a few hard knocks), it didn't happen unless you have it in writing. I document everything because you never know......

 

[SeaSquirt]

Thanks - as a compulsive e-mail deleter, it's a good tip.

Why didn't the student remind her professor after 1, 2 months etc. that he would shortly send her thoughts/revisions? Why didn't she just hand it in at month 5 even though he didn't revise it?

(I haven't started grad school yet, so I'm not too familiar with this.)

 

[paramour]

Thanks - as a compulsive e-mail deleter, it's a good tip.

Why didn't the student remind her professor after 1, 2 months etc. that he would shortly send her thoughts/revisions?

You can (and should)--doesn't mean that the prof magically follows through with it.

Why didn't she just hand it in at month 5 even though he didn't revise it?

Not possible. Dissertation is incomplete until your chair/advisor and the committee says it's done. They don't give you the A-OK, then you're SOL regardless of how much you think that you are ready.