I prepared yet another revised introduction section for my advisers to review. I sent it to both the senior adviser and the junior adviser to review. The senior said he’d wait until i had made any additional changes the junior wanted before he commented on it. This was last week. I was supposed to meet with the junior adviser on Friday, 3/7 before he left town for the week.

He never contacted me to confirm a meeting time, but when I pinged him he said he’d call me Monday in the afternoon or early evening. He didn’t call, which left me in an extraordinarily foul mood. By Wednesday I had calmed down enough to contact him and very politely point out that he had not called. He apologized and stated it was because he was busy. Well, cry me a frickin’ river–I’m pretty damned busy too, but I make time to meet with him at his convenience. Anyway, he said he’d be back the following week but would be at NIST through Wednesday, and we could either meet Thursday or by phone before that. I told him I would be available whenever he was back and at almost any time for a phone call.

I still haven’t heard from him.

At this point, the calendar is starting to drive events. If I don’t get a pre-defense scheduled soon, I will run out of time to complete the pre-defense and the public defense before the end of the semester. Hence the fact I was beyond irate at the junior adviser not calling when he was supposed to.

I am not sure what I will do if I do not make some very rapid progress very soon. I am giving very serious consideration to dropping out of the program if I cannot finish this semester. After nearly 10 years of work, and tens of thousands of dollars in tuition, that would be turning my back on a lot of hard work. But I feel like I’m being strung along with my professors having no regard for the amount of time and money I have sunk into this. They are used to dealing with graduate students who have to go through this entire gauntlet to meet the qualifications for getting a job as a professor. And that’s not what I’m doing this for.

I do know one thing: if I do leave the program, that leaving will go through the dean’s office and quite possibly the university president’s office. I want them to understand that it’s not that I couldn’t hack it, but rather that I think they’re deliberately trying to milk me for all the tuition they can get from me.