Oxford University

[annwfyn]

I got an e mail this morning from my supervisor. She asked how I was getting on with my thesis and suggested we meet up to discuss it next time I'm in Oxford.

I e mailed her back and told her the deadline for handing it in had passed, so I had handed it in, as instructed to do so by my college and by the department.

It was a very strange e mail to write.

Does nobody talk to each other at Oxford?

Comments

[twicedead.livejournal.com]

Bloody hell! Did she have much involvement with it before you handed it in?

[annwfyn.livejournal.com]

A reasonable amount, yes. In that I'd met with her, and last time I saw her she said there wasn't much more she felt I could do beyond write it up.

It was very weird.

[twicedead.livejournal.com]

She sounds like she needs a good smack around the head, she should have been on top of the deadlines.

[annwfyn.livejournal.com]

She was the one who originally told me that she thought that my thesis was due on March 17th. It was why it was such a shock when the deadlines changed radically.

[twicedead.livejournal.com]

What universities really need is a good feedback mechanism on supervisors, so future students can see which ones were helpful and which ones lead you down the garden path. Mine was crap, she never actually met with me and took 5 days to respond to a draft.

[chrisvenus]

Although its easy to point the finger at this tutor it might be that she had been given the wrong information and that she did think it was due at the end of this week. The main problem seems to be that exam schools or whoever is in charge of such things didn't tell everybody the same date for the hand in. I don't really know too much about how it all works though in terms of who should be in charge of what. I guess the department and tutor should be much in line with each other. I don't think the college usually has much to do with graduate degree type stuff.

It is quite funny though. :)

[annwfyn.livejournal.com]

I _think_ what happened was.

1) My supervisor recommended I apply for an extension re: handing my thesis. She, however, had to send me off to my college, coz such things still happen through the college.

2) My college wrote to the examination board, requesting an extension.

3) The examination board wrote back to my college, but no one else, granting a weird extension which fell on a random date which was the same as no one else.

4) My college lost the letter, and just told me an extension had been granted and my essay was due in Hilary Term of 2006.

5) My tutor asked me, and I told her my essay was due in Hilary Term of 2006. She assumed that meant 'end of week 9' for some reason (I know not what).

6) I began to ask for an exact date. The college checked with the exam schools, who basically said 'all masters dissertations are due week 6 of Trinity Term', because normally they are.

7) We were all confused.

8) My college found the original letter and told me my dissertation was due in asap in Hilary Term.

Apparently, no one has talked to my supervisor. Possibly including me, although I thought I mailed her in week 6.

Hence the confusion.

[chrisvenus]

ah, ok. So you were just being weird and awkward basically? :)

[annwfyn.livejournal.com]

Not deliberately! The head of the exam board made me weird and awkward for reasons which have never entirely been explained.

I suspect he was just having some kind of weird practical joke moment.

[chrisvenus]

The head of the exam board made me weird and awkward for reasons which have never entirely been explained.

That sounds like it should be a tag line somewhere. Maybe just stopping at awkward if you want a briefer soundbite. :)

[ulaidhan.livejournal.com]

Most people involved in academia will do the absolute minimum possible, even if they really ought to do more.

The few who do actually pull their finger out can give wonderfully misleading (and good) impressions of how their departments work.

I had serious medical problems through most of my first degree; for all save two terms of the 11 my degree lasted, I had the same supervisor - he was good.

For the other two, I had two different temporary supervisors. One decided that, having been assigned some temporary supervisees, he should read up on them, check their histories, and see if they needed any help, while arranging meetings with them.

He was superb, and also happened to be one of the best teachers at the university. I suspect that giving a damn about his students helped there....

The other, even though he was _also_ directly teaching me for the whole of the term in which he was notionally responsible for me, didn't appear to give a shit, and formally complained at the end of term that I hadn't told him I'd got medical problems until part-way through the course, when it became abundantly clear I was struggling. Not that he ever initatied a conversation with me about it even then.... Me, I'd figured that being assigned one of his pupils to supervise would mean that he would be arsed to at least glance at their file. I was wrong, because no one had told him he _had_ to go that far; until they did, or I requested a meeting with him, I was just a name on a list for whom he had to do nothing at all.

Most people in academia will only do what they've already been told they explicitly _have_ to, and it's always someone else's responsibility to tell them if their routine has to change rather than theirs to notice that it needs to. Thus, it's your supervisor's fault for not chasing the admin staff to tell her whether they'd agreed a new date for you, and never theirs for failing to tell her (or you); it's your fault for not telling your supervisor that you'd managed to find out the new date since no one told the admin staff _they_ had to do it; it's the exam board's fault for not giving the admin staff an easy date to remember and pass on; it's... always someone else's problem and fault.

[lanfykins.livejournal.com]

In brief: no.

I used to find out term dates by asking the librarians.