Wonderful World of Academia: Once again, I dread finding myself in a Kafka novel.
Okay, guys, shit's about to get serious. I had two very important meetings with my advisor and my second referee (who's also chairman of the board of examiners, aka Vorsitzender des Prüfungsausschusses) last week and I have another two tomorrow and it looks like I'll finally register my thesis at the registrar's office (aka Prüfungsamt) tomorrow.
That is, if I don't get swallowed up by the Kafka novel that is university (a friend of my likes to say "Uni is like a Kafka novel" and really, that's all you need to ever know about academic administration). Had a short but intense burst of panic when I was looking for the right form to register my thesis and stumbled across the "Themenvergabe" form (a form on which my advisor, my second referee and the board of examiners need to approve of my thesis topic) on which it said that I need to "register the thesis within a week after my thesis topic gets approved". I was like "WHAT I NEED ANOTHER FUCKING FORM I CAN'T FIND ON THIS WEBSITE ARE YOU FUCKING KIDDING ME?" and it took me about ten minutes of panicked searching on the university website to find out that I have to register my thesis in person at the registrar's office. Lucky for me, they're open tomorrow (I don't know how it is in other countries but at German universities, all the important admin offices have opening hours like "Tuesday 10 - 12, Thursday 13 - 15" and... that's it. Like, you have a better chance of spotting a unicorn on campus than find an office with normal business hours), which, however, I only found out after a few more minutes of panicked searching. Why do they hide the important info all over the website instead of putting everything in one place?
So now I have to fill out about 98429923 forms (actually, it's just two, but one of them is a real pain in the ass because I have to fill in every class I took into very small spaces and there is nothing that I hate more than squeezing my illegible handwriting into small spaces) and keep every appendage crossed that someone at the registrar's office can squeeze me in and check the "registered thesis" block in their computers. I swear to God, if they tell me they can't register my thesis because of that one check still missing despite that nice lady from the registrar's office telling me it shouldn't pose a problem, someone's gonna get hurt. Come to think of it, it's probably a good idea to find that e-mail and print it, in case things threaten to go south, after all.
All in all, academic admin stuff sucks and I'll probably do a little happy dance once that's all squared away. Only that after that, the writing part is probably gonna make me wonder more than once why I thought it was a good idea to go back to uni in the first place but as I told my advisor and second referee: I plan on getting it done by the end of August, and I'll stick to that. So I'll at least have some kind of time frame and a point at which it'll be over. After that, there's only the thesis defence left, and apparently, that's not gonna be half as scary as a PhD defence (I've been to two of those (one in marine chemistry, one in physical chemistry), and both made me kind of glad that I never set my heart on a PhD, anyway) as it'll only be me, my advisor and my second referee, a ten to twelve minutes presentation summarizing my thesis and fifteen to twenty minutes questions about the thesis and the two reports and that's it. I can handle that, right? Right?
Okay then, back to that motivational letter for my application for the Foreign Office (attachée track (the track that you need to get on if you want to be ambassador some day. Because we don't give that job to people who donate the biggest sums. We give it to people who actually earned it due to years of foreign service), aka höherer Dienst im Auswärtigen Amt) I need to finish before tomorrow's deadline for this year's attachée track crew. I hate motivational letters and I honestly believe they're the devil's own invention but if I don't finish it today, I'll have to wait another year to apply and I really do need to apply to every fucking place that could even remotely offer me a job so I'll just have to grit my teeth and do it. And yes, especially for the new people, there will be another f-locked posting about what I actually do in my studies, where I want to go with it and how the prospects are, I'm just not sure whether I'm ready yet to earnestly deal with it or not.
That is, if I don't get swallowed up by the Kafka novel that is university (a friend of my likes to say "Uni is like a Kafka novel" and really, that's all you need to ever know about academic administration). Had a short but intense burst of panic when I was looking for the right form to register my thesis and stumbled across the "Themenvergabe" form (a form on which my advisor, my second referee and the board of examiners need to approve of my thesis topic) on which it said that I need to "register the thesis within a week after my thesis topic gets approved". I was like "WHAT I NEED ANOTHER FUCKING FORM I CAN'T FIND ON THIS WEBSITE ARE YOU FUCKING KIDDING ME?" and it took me about ten minutes of panicked searching on the university website to find out that I have to register my thesis in person at the registrar's office. Lucky for me, they're open tomorrow (I don't know how it is in other countries but at German universities, all the important admin offices have opening hours like "Tuesday 10 - 12, Thursday 13 - 15" and... that's it. Like, you have a better chance of spotting a unicorn on campus than find an office with normal business hours), which, however, I only found out after a few more minutes of panicked searching. Why do they hide the important info all over the website instead of putting everything in one place?
So now I have to fill out about 98429923 forms (actually, it's just two, but one of them is a real pain in the ass because I have to fill in every class I took into very small spaces and there is nothing that I hate more than squeezing my illegible handwriting into small spaces) and keep every appendage crossed that someone at the registrar's office can squeeze me in and check the "registered thesis" block in their computers. I swear to God, if they tell me they can't register my thesis because of that one check still missing despite that nice lady from the registrar's office telling me it shouldn't pose a problem, someone's gonna get hurt. Come to think of it, it's probably a good idea to find that e-mail and print it, in case things threaten to go south, after all.
All in all, academic admin stuff sucks and I'll probably do a little happy dance once that's all squared away. Only that after that, the writing part is probably gonna make me wonder more than once why I thought it was a good idea to go back to uni in the first place but as I told my advisor and second referee: I plan on getting it done by the end of August, and I'll stick to that. So I'll at least have some kind of time frame and a point at which it'll be over. After that, there's only the thesis defence left, and apparently, that's not gonna be half as scary as a PhD defence (I've been to two of those (one in marine chemistry, one in physical chemistry), and both made me kind of glad that I never set my heart on a PhD, anyway) as it'll only be me, my advisor and my second referee, a ten to twelve minutes presentation summarizing my thesis and fifteen to twenty minutes questions about the thesis and the two reports and that's it. I can handle that, right? Right?
Okay then, back to that motivational letter for my application for the Foreign Office (attachée track (the track that you need to get on if you want to be ambassador some day. Because we don't give that job to people who donate the biggest sums. We give it to people who actually earned it due to years of foreign service), aka höherer Dienst im Auswärtigen Amt) I need to finish before tomorrow's deadline for this year's attachée track crew. I hate motivational letters and I honestly believe they're the devil's own invention but if I don't finish it today, I'll have to wait another year to apply and I really do need to apply to every fucking place that could even remotely offer me a job so I'll just have to grit my teeth and do it. And yes, especially for the new people, there will be another f-locked posting about what I actually do in my studies, where I want to go with it and how the prospects are, I'm just not sure whether I'm ready yet to earnestly deal with it or not.