PhD Complete!!!!!
All right -- the PhD situation is officially stable. I graduated the second weekend of
May.
On Thursday 5/6, I presented my dissertation research to a full room (about twenty people! I was frankly astonished). Many people, none of whom can be trusted to tell me I sucked, told me that it went very well. I had excellent handouts. My dissertation subject involves the medieval dream vision genre (as you have all heard me say OVER AND OVER and don't think for a second that I don't appreciate your patience), so my handout packets had a cover sheet featuring Gaiman's Sandman, hands in prayer position (although I am Quite Sure that he was not praying) and the quotation from Rose Walker that "dreams are weird and stupid and they scare me. I haven't slept properly for six months."
Duquesne University opens commencement with a pretty elaborate, beautiful mass, so that was pretty awesome. I almost didn't go, but it was lavish and spectacular and really quite powerful, so I am very glad I did go.
Commencement itself is divided between two days, the university-wide ceremony following right after the opening mass, and the college-specific ceremony on the following morning. At the university-wide ceremony, they university president acknowledged the undergrads and MA/MS students en masse, bestowing their degrees all at once, and then he called up the PhD students and their advisors by name, one by one, to receive their hoods. This was pretty neat - I felt like the degree descended on my from Heaven at the moment Anne Brannen dropped that hood on my shoulders.
I had been led to believe that at the college-specific ceremony on Saturday I would sit with the faculty, but that otherwise my participation in commencement exercises was complete. TURNS OUT: Saturday morning they lined us up with the undergrads and MA/MS students and we sat with the students. HOWEVER: very early in the ceremony, the college dean called the PhD students up AGAIN by name, with our advisors, one by one, and invited us to TAKE OUR SEAT among the faculty. This was AMAZING. After Friday, pretty sure the good stuff was over, I suggested to my parents that they might enjoy sleeping in rather than sitting through a graduation ceremony in which my name would not be called. THANK GOD THEY CAME ANYHOW. In practice, my mom and stepfather saw me not just seated among but INVITED to sit among the faculty. And they sat us on the dais, in the FRONT, so every kid shaking the dean's hand was looking right at us, and more to the point, so that our parents were TOTALLY able to see us the whole time while the undergrads were being called up by name to collect their diplomas.
So, in short, what I mean to say is: PhD students, don't skip graduation.
May.
On Thursday 5/6, I presented my dissertation research to a full room (about twenty people! I was frankly astonished). Many people, none of whom can be trusted to tell me I sucked, told me that it went very well. I had excellent handouts. My dissertation subject involves the medieval dream vision genre (as you have all heard me say OVER AND OVER and don't think for a second that I don't appreciate your patience), so my handout packets had a cover sheet featuring Gaiman's Sandman, hands in prayer position (although I am Quite Sure that he was not praying) and the quotation from Rose Walker that "dreams are weird and stupid and they scare me. I haven't slept properly for six months."
Duquesne University opens commencement with a pretty elaborate, beautiful mass, so that was pretty awesome. I almost didn't go, but it was lavish and spectacular and really quite powerful, so I am very glad I did go.
Commencement itself is divided between two days, the university-wide ceremony following right after the opening mass, and the college-specific ceremony on the following morning. At the university-wide ceremony, they university president acknowledged the undergrads and MA/MS students en masse, bestowing their degrees all at once, and then he called up the PhD students and their advisors by name, one by one, to receive their hoods. This was pretty neat - I felt like the degree descended on my from Heaven at the moment Anne Brannen dropped that hood on my shoulders.
I had been led to believe that at the college-specific ceremony on Saturday I would sit with the faculty, but that otherwise my participation in commencement exercises was complete. TURNS OUT: Saturday morning they lined us up with the undergrads and MA/MS students and we sat with the students. HOWEVER: very early in the ceremony, the college dean called the PhD students up AGAIN by name, with our advisors, one by one, and invited us to TAKE OUR SEAT among the faculty. This was AMAZING. After Friday, pretty sure the good stuff was over, I suggested to my parents that they might enjoy sleeping in rather than sitting through a graduation ceremony in which my name would not be called. THANK GOD THEY CAME ANYHOW. In practice, my mom and stepfather saw me not just seated among but INVITED to sit among the faculty. And they sat us on the dais, in the FRONT, so every kid shaking the dean's hand was looking right at us, and more to the point, so that our parents were TOTALLY able to see us the whole time while the undergrads were being called up by name to collect their diplomas.
So, in short, what I mean to say is: PhD students, don't skip graduation.