Dr. W

Maitri's thesis defense was yesterday, and we all (including his wife and son) got to go and watch his presentation to his committee. At the start, they kicked us all out of the room so that they could talk about him in private. As we stood outside Maitri joked that they were probably looking at all his grades, and that he was glad that he'd never had a class with any of them. To which I had to point out that I had taken classes from four out of the five of them, including the one from the ECE department. They all agreed that I've been here too long.

It went very well, he got a couple of hairy questions but fielded them well. The progression of the questions through the talk was interesting. At first they were obviously 'examining' him, asking questions about basic concepts related to his research. But as his talk progressed they really turned more to each other and basically just discussed his project in front of him, he (wisely) mostly stayed out of that. Then at the end they hit him with the real bombardment, all kinds of questions spanning from minute details of his methods and conclusions to what could be done in the future with his work.

Then at the end the kicked us all out again to decide his fate. He passed of course, it sounds as if students are pretty much assured to pass before they begin this final process, at least so long as they have a job lined up. ;-) The party is tomorrow.

Soren is next up, he's now aiming to defend in January, although, technically, I've never heard him specified a year. And I keep reminding him that he can't graduate until he finally returns my last few graded Physics 335 assignments. Hmmm...that was how many years ago? Yeah, I may have been here too long.

-Tim