I have an important thesis committee meeting on Monday, February 6th. In fact, it’s in less than 48 hours. At this meeting, I am going to ask for the informal permission to stop doing experiments and start writing my dissertation. The experiment that is in progress currently is hopefully my last experiment that will actually be part of my thesis. (I have another “last” experiment, but it is trying to make a mutant yeast strain that I am pretty sure is lethal (to the yeast). Although my advisor doesn’t believe me that this experiment is impossible, I am pretty confident that this mutant strain won’t be going in my thesis and thus it doesn’t count as my last experiment!)
I have had this meeting scheduled for a month and first, I focussed on gathering as much data as I could to tie up any loose ends. This allowed me to make the biggest conclusions possible. I have spent the last week and a half analyzing this new data and combining it with my existing data. Now that my analysis is completed (to the best of my abilities with the data I currently have), I am trying to make a story out of the analysis.
This weekend, I’m trying to make presentation that encompasses all the exciting things I have found in my research. The results have been a mixed bag of statistically significant and others that were not interesting. It’s not an easy task to synthesize these results into a revised model that explains something new about DNA repair. However, I have learned that expressing any doubt or insecurity about my data (or my interpretation of my data) turns my boss into a pitbull with a laser-like focus for my jugular. If I want to be successful with this group of people, I can’t show fear or anxiety (no matter how reasonable or natural those feelings are in this situation.) I have to stay on message and upbeat in order to convince them that this work is sufficient to publish and then for me to defend.
Last experiment or no, the real thing that is stressing me out is whether or not the next few months will be full of writing or a new direction in my project (which would mean lots more time in graduate school). It feels like a real turning point.
