Thesis: defended
For those wondering whether or not I’ve died in my apartment in a vat of sweet-smelling liquid that masked the smell of my rotting body, the answer is NO! I’m alive and well, just in the wake of one of the more excruciatingly painful periods of work-induced anti-social behavior. And as a consolation, I never have to defend my thesis again.
Unlike most Ph.D. defenses, the Media Lab counterpart is quite public, held in an auditorium-sized room, and can occur before the thesis document is finished. Last Thursday at 9am I went through this process presenting my thesis titled The structural determinants of media contagion, and I came through fairly unscathed. It was fairly well attended once people woke up (around 9:30 I guess), and my committee decided I was ready to enter the cloistered halls of academia… after I finish writing the document.
It’s unfortunate, but true. I can’t put Dr. on my credit card just yet, nor can I pretend like I have any plans after that. In the mean time I’ll be writing in limbo until my April 5th deadline. I’ll hold off on the results until then, lest I contradict myself in two weeks time. But I just wanted to thank everyone that helped me get here, and there are so many. If you’re reading this, I’m sure you know that I mean you, because just about everyone who possibly could have lended a hand did in some way (even if it was just by taking the survey).
So thanks. I’ll be filling in the details in a few weeks, but you can take solace in the mean time that I’m taking showers again and interacting with people other than the three friends I’ve developed in my brain over the past two months.
