Thesis submission - return to blogging

It’s time for a triumphant return from a self-imposed hiatus! Last week I finished my Ph.D. thesis (not called a dissertation here in NZ for some reason) on Oligocene eomysticetids from New Zealand, got all four copies printed, and formally submitted it to the university. Unlike schools back in the USA, most theses are reviewed externally, after formal submission; master’s theses in the US are typically reviewed in-house, with all the corrections being completed prior to formal submission – so at the time of submission, you’re finished. US Ph.D. dissertations are reviewed on a similar time frame but with one external committee member. Here, the thesis is reviewed externally and often takes up to three months after formal submission, so now we play the waiting game. I’ll start the publishing bursary soon, where the school pays you to stick around for three months to publish individual chapters from your thesis (while you wait). Anyway, just a quick update – and coming soon will be a post about the newly described fur seal Eotaria crypta. 

 

Four printed copies of the thesis for review, with Yoshi Tanaka in the background. 

      Photo (c) R. Ewan Fordyce.