I’m Done Except for that Ceremony

Yesterday I defended myself to my committee and they approved me for graduation. It was kind of a funny meeting as my advisor told me the day before that in preparation everyone on my committee were all “what is it we’re supposed to do for her”. It seems there hasn’t been an EdS student in their midst (at least on campus) for something like 10 years. So, it wasn’t all in my imagination. They really were confused about how to handle me. I heard there’s another one floating around now but I’m not sure if she’s in the Instructional Design program or if she’s in one of the more traditional School of Ed programs that produce EdS folks (like educational leadership).

Anyway, I presented the project I’ve been working on all semester and will continue working on through the summer. Folks were pleased and we generated some good conversation. One of the professors on my committee is someone I’ve had as a teacher and she was very complimentary to me about my skills and it was a little embarrassing. I thanked her as well as I could. She remembered some incredible details about our conversations inside and outside of the classroom.

At the end of my presentation, I had to go out into the hallway while they discussed letting me pass–probably more like they had to pass around my exam card so they could all sign it. As I exited the room, I found a classmate waiting to go in to talk about her dissertation. She’s in the early stages of writing so her meeting was more of a check-in type thing. It was really good to see her since I had just referenced her in my meeting. I told her that I’d just been talking about her and how much I liked working with her. I think that surprised her, but it was true. I did enjoy my contact with all of the international students. That’s a very good part of the program. I wished her the best of luck and she congratulated me on finishing.

I’m a bit curious who I will see at graduation. Because the program is so mixed with graduate students and doctoral students, I have no idea who is graduating and who is continuing on. Since the School doesn’t do a formal ceremony, I’ll just have to look for people in the large Graduate School ceremony at o’dark thirty on a Friday morning in May.