Graduation and alumni weekend - a double header

The 29th June 2007 marked my second Durham graduation. I've written about how the first was a big let-down, so this time I wasn't expecting as much but it turned out really well. I met my parents in town and we went to Oldfields for lunch which was really nice - the food was great and we were there at the same time as Matt and his entourage and Nick from Engineering.



After that Matt and I walked over to Palace Green to gown up. For some reason they had a multitude of PhD gowns there, but only a select few sizes of hat - this resulted in Matt and I having hats that shifted around a lot over the afternoon. We filed over to the Castle where we met up with the other graduands - along with the other PhD and undergraduate chemists we were also paired with historians. The PhD chemists were split between those from my year who had managed to get submitted in time and those left over from the year before. This included Carl and Lue so there was a total of 4 Trevs' chemists getting their PhDs.



After we were paraded across to the cathedral we were seated in the EXTREMELY narrow seats. They were connected together but clearly weren't meant to be used by adults when in this configuration. With us all rammed in the temperature started to go up dramatically and the gowns and hats didn't help at all. As the ceremony started the historians were called up first. Once again it was quite fun to watch the different techniques used to shake Bill Bryson's hand. Some people looked embarrassed to be there and tried to get off the stage as quickly as possible without looking Bill in the face, others sneaked in the two-hand shake. As our cramped conditions became almost unbearable the historians seemed to keep on coming. Finally they were finished and attention turned to the chemists. Once again as we got ever-closer to the front of the queue the nerves began to appear - were our hats on straight (a new problem since the first graduation), how many steps were there and could we navigate them without falling over and most importantly of all you had to go up at the right moment
and hope they pronounced your name right. right. There were no major foul-ups and when we got back to the seats I decided to leave a spare seat to alleviate the cramped conditions. This seemed to throw a lot of people off as they weren't sat where they had been before. Bill Bryson gave his speech, which although funny was pretty short and apparently an almost word-for-word repeat of his speeches from previous years.



After we got out of the cathedral we all managed to stay in roughly the same place so we got in a lot of group photos and then we tracked down Bill Bryson and got our picture taken with him. We bumped in Maggie and our college tutor John which was nice and a lot of our chemistry friends turned up to see us. All in all it was a lot better than the chaos of 2003.



After this we bundled off the parents and handed back the gowns (our graduation was the last of the week so we couldn't wander around town in the gowns) and headed over to the New Inn. This day also marked the start of Trevs' alumni weekend so the New Inn slowly started filling up with familiar face from recent years. Eventually we dragged ourselves up the hill and into the bar. We got chatting to various people and after a few hours went out to experience Love Shack for the first time - it was pretty rammed and we didn't get back until about 3am. The next day brought the relief of brunch and then a free day until the formal. Alumni weekend is all about the drinking these days - the only events are the buffet in the bar on the Friday and the formal/late license on the Saturday. We turned up to the drinks reception and found a surprisingly large number of 1999 matriculants there.



We had a really good formal chatting to those around us at the table. Afterwards we slipped back into our old formal routine of mingling and chatting to people, dancing round the bar and ending up on the cobbles chatting to even more people. We had an amazing night and the best part was that although I had looked forward to seeing certain people - Matt, Mel, Alan, Brett and Sarah etc. it was really fun chatting to all those people that Matt and I used to chat to in the bar and formals like Gareth and Fran. It was really good to catch up with all those people that I will probably only hear from very rarely.



The next day, absolutely everyone I saw looked like death warmed up. Which was amusing. All in all the weekend was absolutely amazing and the only bad point was that it had to end. Roll on next year (although no more graduations for me now.)

PhD - over and out

Most people will tell you that a PhD takes three years. These people are wrong. Even if you were to finish your thesis and hand it in on the last day of the three years (like Matt did) it just won't go away. A few months later there's the viva, then you have to find the drive to do your corrections and get them approved followed by the arduous task of printing and binding multiple copies and finally the trip to submit them. On paper it all sounds like nothing compared to three years of work followed by writing a book, but it's really not that straight forward. A lot of supervisors will push their students really hard during the three years and then leave them to their own devices with the writeup. This means, if you aren't careful it can drag on and on and could even turn into something that just seems like it will never end. After all my issues during my final year, the one thing I clung on to was my determination to have the write up finished by Christmas. I'd seen far too many people not submit until the following summer - even Amy form my group who seemed to have nearly finished writing when she left took 8 months to submit. Thankfully, due to my ruthless efficiency at writing I managed that feat with a good two weeks to spare (in fact, if it hadn't been for a mix up with my supervisor I would have been done and dusted within 5 weeks of leaving). The plan back in September '05 was to start planning the write up over Easter and start writing soon after in the spare hours I had during the day. Those who know me will know what I think about plans...and sure enough Easter came and went with no planning done at all. It got to the start of July and I was starting to get worried as not only had I not started writing, but I hadn't started planning yet. The new plan became to have the literature review done and the rest planned out by the time I left. This time I exceeded expectations and left having completed 4 and a half out of seven chapters. Oh - and the Edison quote from the start - that took a few days of searching to decide on.

Halfway through my second year I was found my life and my chemistry were going pretty well and I told my lab-mate Carl that I wasn't scared of the idea of the viva. He didn't believe me but as the time drew closer I was actually terrified - not of the viva, but about how little work I'd done for it. Once it was done I was sent away with a list of typos and a couple of figures to tweak and 10 days later I had an approved thesis. With "the worst" behind me I took my foot off the gas pedal which was a mistake. I hunted around for the best paper to print on (which is so anal for something that is going to sit on a shelf for eternity). This was where I started to run into problems. The university "insists" on certain standards for the layout of a thesis - all the official guidelines tell us to ensure that our theses conform to BS4821. Unfortunately this standard was withfrawn in the 1990s and there is nowhere on the web that will tell you what the damn thing actually said! The graduate school weren't very helpful either; "we don't have a copy in Durham - Newcastle University library may have a copy." Well that's very helpful. Eventually I just decided to print it the way I'd done it. Thankfully I could get it bound at Birmingham university. Durham must be the only university in the country to not have a binding service. Even the local pronaprint won't touch theses. I mean come on - the library must do a shedload of binding with all the journals it gets not to mention the money to be made from the many thousands of students needed theses, projects, dissertations and reports binding. No wonder Durham seems to be leaking money all over the place. The final hurdle was sorting out the attached CD. I had three different sets of instructions on the requirements for CDs - it's as if the grad school simply forgot they'd already written requirements for CDs and wrote new ones. Twice. Eventually I just picked one and went with it.

This had taken nearly three months from the date of my viva - it should have been done in about a week. I imagined all sorts of grand things happening when I finally submitted my hardbound copies, but all that happened was the lady at the grad school desk simply took them off my and wandered off - I had to call her back just to get a receipt. A bit underwhelming. The thing is, Matt who handed in his thesis to be assesed in September only handed in his hardbound copies about a week before me in the end. My advice to anyone writing up - don't slack off once you get the viva out of the way - I was fairly well organised and it still took me three months to finish up everything - just go for it and finish it off. As it is my PhD has taken me 3 years, 6 months, and 25 days from start to finish (and I still have to sort out all the graduation stuff). I feel really sorry for all the physicists who have had their funding extended to 4 years - if they drag their feet over the write up even a little their PhD will consume half a decade of their life - more if the write up drags on and that's really scary. This is just training, not our life's work!

More advice? Ok - here's something I really wish someone had said to me along the way. Everyone needs to feel special at some point. I guess when you start a PhD you're really excited and feel different from our friends who left university after their degrees, but after a while it seems like everyone around you is doing a PhD too and it can feel like what you're doing is fairly common. I don't have the actual figure, but I hazard a guess that maybe 1% (if that) of the UK population has a PhD - what we're all doing is something amazing that very few people will ever get the chance to do and what you yourself is doing is probably something that a handful of people on Earth will be working on. I hope that gives you some kind of comfort in the struggle ahead.

The sad thing is that even though it's the 21st century, all the British Library will keep is a microfilm record of the title and contents pages. If someone wants a copy, then the BL will have to ring up Durham and some poor gimp will have to go and dig the thesis out of the depository and photocopy it. Wouldn't it have just been simpler for the BL to ask for a copy in PDF format? I know I'm potentially loosing royalty fees by doing this, but if you want a read of my thesis just click the link below.

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Over the last few years I've been as happy as I've ever been, as unhappy as I've ever been and every point in between. I've always managed to get on with my work. I lot of people drop out, a lot of people take an age over the write up and lots more finish and then never want to do the subject again. I am not one of these people.

Durham, vivas and camera phones

The thing I remember most about my graduation is what an anticlimax it was. No, let me go further than that - it was a massive let down. The week leading up to it was severely lacking in atmosphere in college - everyone seemed worn down and tired and as soon as people's parents arrived that was it. In addition to having to get up at 6.30am to get to Palace Green in time for the 7am gown fitting (read: no hot water in college) as we came out from the ceremony all my friends scattered and everything got muddled into a big confusing mess - then it was over. When I walked back to my office after my viva a little over ten days ago I was feeling the same thing. I'd been anticipating this moment for nearly 4 years - 3 years of work and half a year of writing had been wrapped up and "OK'd". In my 5th year I remember thinking that this moment would fill me with sheer elation. It didn't.

In the days and hours leading up to the viva I was actually starting to get really worried about how un-worried I was about it all. After all, this was the test to determine whether the last 3 years of work had been up to the right standard. I did a shockingly low amount of revision. I know Matt spent 2 months revising if I'm honest I think I probably did about a weeks worth. In fact, when I read my thesis through the night before it was actually the first time I'd read it since handing it in. The viva itself was incredibly quick only 1hr45 which is shorter than the average. To my surprise my external examiner started off my telling me that they had been really impressed by my thesis and didn't see any problems with it. Straight away this knocked me off balance as it was the last thing I expected. It felt awful as I took a long time to answer some of the questions and there were some (it felt like most of them) where I had to say "I'm not sure". Looking back, all the questions I struggled on were on pretty simple things and all the questions I breezed through involved the complex stuff. Thankfully there were only a few mistakes and I struggled through a couple of mechansims. At 1hr40 my external examiner said he was done. I couldn't believe it was over, but then invited my internal examiner to ask some questions. I settled down and figured I was only half way through, but amazingly there was only one more question. I couldn't believe it when they asked me to step outside. The deliberation took less than a minute and then I was a doctor.

It didn't really feel over. I've come to realise I need to let go of it - in the last 15 months or so I've just about made myself physically sick worrying about my work - why didn't my reaction work? Would it mean I fail or have to do more lab work? It felt like I was running out of time and starting to panic. My PhD has been such a large part of my life for the last 3 and a half years. I brought it home with me, I'd go into the lab in the evenings and weekends if I needed to. In the last year especially I tried to keep my mind on work to see if I could turn my run of luck around. I just assumed that it was like this for everyone - but of course it's not. In the "real world" people really can leave their jobs at work. To me I feel really disappointed with my last year's work, but taking my work as a whole it looks ok. As predicted, all the congratulations I got was of the "we expected you to pass" variety rather than the "wow I'm so happy for you" variety.

So yes, the feeling of elation was missing but at least I got to see my friends again. On my first night back I met up with Brett and Tim and went out for some (ok, quite a few) drinks. The next day I went out for lunch with the girls from my group which is always nice. My biggest regret about my PhD was not being able to get my group out more often. Apart from Christmas meals I think it may have only happened 3 times in 3 years and the shame was we had a good time when we did make it out. Oh well. In addition to the chemistry crowd, Matt had made the journey up from London and Alan was around too. I even managed to get Kate from my lab out for a bit too. The night followed the tried and tested path of the New Inn followed by pizza, Jimmy Allen's, Chase and Klute. It was like I'd never left - how I've missed the dodgy green double vodka-pseudo Red Bulls in Klute. The next day I met up with the chemists again and went for lunch in the new section of the Gala complex and then in the evening had a night in Trevs with Matt and Emma. The nostalgia of Pizza Perfect was in attendance (along with the piss-poor free Lambrini) and the next day I went to dinner at Khairul's house with the chemists after which we sat around and chatted. It was simple moments like this that I miss so much. We had about 10 PhD chemists (and Lou) sat around in their sitting room talking - something that we'd done a load before and not really something that would seem that special - but once you leave it's so rare you actually see 5 of your friends.

I have to mention mobile phones again - my small camera's screen has packed in and I didn't fancy hauling my Canon round so I relied on my friends' camera phones. My phone may be able to tell me about the public transport networks in every city in the world and have sat-nav, but the camera is just rubbish. The photos in this post have come straight from Emma's phone - armed with a Carl Zeiss lens and xenon flash. I'm seriously impressed with the quality - especially the ones from Klute. I may have to invest soon.

Just as when I went up in December it felt like I'd never left and all the things I've loved about my PhD came back whilst talking to people. I've met people from Australia, Germany, France, Thailand, Japan, China, Malaysia, Holland and loads more countries, I've loved every minute of teaching the undergraduates, I've travelled to the USA and Japan to see some of the top people in my area talk, I've learnt to take nothing at face value, I still feel young and even though I was really scared about my work there was never a moment when I didn't love it and that's the most important thing. A lot of people my age already hate their jobs and a lot of others are indifferent to them. Even at my hight of failures I was always excited to go into work to see if my reaction had worked. Now, if only I could feel excited about my result - I've got 4 months until graduation #2.