Reset

Well, I threw in the towel. Work isn't letting up and the Q is only 9 days away. I deferred it to next semester. While I was at it, I also dropped the Cloud Computing course since if I don't carve out some serious study time, I'm going to be right back in this same bind four months from now.

So, this is a pretty big reset. It probably means I won't finish in three years. I always thought that was ambitious, but it seemed doable up until now. I still wouldn't say it's out of the question, but certainly a lot less likely.

That may not be an entirely bad thing. A year ago, I just wanted to get my "union card" and move on. I figured that anybody hiring a new prof in his mid-50's wasn't going to care about the dissertation; they wanted the 30 years of work experience. The PhD was just one of those things you have to do to be in the club.

I still think that's true, but now I want the dissertation to matter. I've enjoyed digging into a topic. I want to do something of substance. That's not going to happen if my primary goal is to get through as quickly as possible. My remaining class is a directed study with my adviser. I'm hoping we really hone in on a productive line of research this fall. I'd like to come out of UMSL with 3-4 publications along with the thesis. From what I can tell, success in academics isn't that much different from success in anything else. Sure, talent counts, but what really matters is that you're willing to do the work. I am.