K
well luckily none of you have me on facebook (other than MoP) and he was asleep when this all happened i'm sure.. but there was a lot of drama... a lot of emotions... and a lot of pissed off people at the end... heres what happened:
To start, my department is called SESE (School of Earth and Space Exploration). It includes both geologists AND astronomers. It was formed only 2 years ago.. i was in the group of the first TRUE class of SESE.
They urged us to cross disciplines (What i wanted to do and why i came ) and so we took geology classes.. they gave us B's because they didnt feel like we knew enough to really compete with everyone else.
Most were pissed and very few or no astronomers take geology classes anymore.
I was one of 2 who did.. who tried hard to bring the department together. I believe it IS useful to know both... and maybe its not right to hold them to entirely the same standards.. but they need to try.
SO i did 2 projects. An astronomy one as my main project and a geology one as my secondary project. They loved this. They praised me for it.. urged me on, and told me it was great and i should try to get more people to do this.
When it came down to my orals, I nailed the astronomy project. Got almost everything they asked me... and did great. Afterward he said it was a wonderful presentation, and my paper is almost publishable and the other astronomers thought it was great.
The geology one went ok as far as the presentation.. but the questions they asked ever.. i could not answer many, because i did not do research into ALL of geology. I do not have a geology BA or any official background other than the classes ive taken, the work i've done and how hard ive tried to understand it ALONG with what i do in astronomy.
This wasnt enough.. my advisor for that project thought i needed to know more (unrealistically).
After hte presentation you sit outside and wait for them to come up with a verdict. After 45 min. my geology advisor (he is NOT my main advisor.. NOR was he the head of the comitte, which was picked randomly of the 5 that were present). But he came out and told me i did not pass. He was sorry, but they didn't think i knew enough.
I was shell shocked.. and upset and barely heard anything they said after that.
I felt betrayed by the department for telling me to do all this geology and then screwing me with it.They knew that for the astronomers i knew far more than the others. So if what i did wasnt enough... and i was the first to try this.. then it will never happen again. I told them this. I am basically the person who links the 2 departments academically and socially... i have tried to get the grad students from both discplines to be friends.. this has worked and the head of our department has praised me for it.
People come and ask me what they should do if they have interests in both. I tell them to try it. That its great to learn both astronomy and geology...that they help each other (they do for my field astrobiology) and that the dept. supports it.
Now i dont think they do. They are worried because i told them i will no long support the interdisplinary aspect of the department. They are slightly scared by this and by my ability to influence my peers. I'm on every committee for the grad students...
HOWEVER.
After a few hours of feeling upset.. not knowing what to do.. and anger.. i went to my actual advisor(the astronomer) who is a great guy.
He told me i DID pass.. that they passed me with conditions... meaning what they want me to do is do a small second project in astronomy (observing) and present it in 10 min with 20 min of questions in 6 months.
This isn't too much. The project will be directly related to my PhD thesis... with someone from NY i was already going to start working with.
This didn't upset me so much. BUT the other guy (his name is Paul) told me i didn't pass. My advisor could not realize why he told me what he did. A bunch of people are confused as to why he was such a dick to me.
And the whole department is now terrified of doing projects that are not in their field.
Ahh drama. Thankfully my main advisor is great, explained everything and offered to help figure out how to make things right.
It'll be insane!
i'l post my results at some point. Lets hope its good.
