Graduation Destiny...

I have spent the day so far making my plan for graduation in May of 2008 with my masters degree in Water Resource Management from UNLV.  Well it may still be a perilous journey yet but I think that it will be possible for me to accomplish.  There are so any factors to deal with that many around me have given little faith in the possibility of it actually occurring.

Basically here is the time line that is before me.

The day of graduation is May 12th I believe.  The last finals are going to be taken on May 9th.  For me to get my masters I will need to complete my thesis.  To do this I will need to turn in my thesis by April 5th at the latest.  That has to be a finished accepted copy (accepted by my committee) with required revisions already made.  So to make revisions I need to know what they want changed.  So I will have to defend no later than March 5th so that after words I can make the needed changes and then be able to turn in a final copy by the deadline.  So this means that to defend my thesis by march fifth I need to have my thesis written and finalized by february 5th.  So that my committee can look through it and ask for changes to be make before defending.  So to basically be able to have my thesis written by then I will be needing to have all my research done and approved by about 3 months prior to to February 5th.  So by the  5th of November I needed to have my research done and finalized and accepted.  Today is August 3rd.  From today I have 3 months and 2 days to basically be done with all my research.

To finish my research I have to do another entire 3050B extraction which will take 1 week of my time (that is all my time for a week).  I have to still analyze again for selenium after that extraction which will take about 3 days.  I have to still analyze for arsenic 3 times which may take a week.  I still have two days of Scanning Electron Microscope work to complete.  1 more boron run at about 2 days of work.  3 more phosphorus runs at 1 week of work.  This is what I know I need to do for sure, and I may get quite a bit more to do as well.  This brings me up to a total of 5 weeks of work in the lab left to do in 12 weeks time. 

Did I mention that I still need to take seven classes and support my family?  Well I am thinking that all things considered I will be able to be successful.  So far I am the #1 in my program for academics, but I may be tied with others, who may also have a 4.0 overall.  I have complained about the trouble of getting all my classes so that I can actually graduate so I won't even go there.

So overall currently, the goal of getting through with the masters degree by the end of 2 years is still in the possible category.  This is a good thing, and I am happy about life!

Have a great day!