The Infinite Thesis: Interview with Professor C

Author(s): Todd Riggs

Professor C

(This was by far the shortest interview; Prof. C seemed preoccupied by something else, possibly the 2.86 test he needed to put together in the next day or so.)

Prof C felt that, giving him the benefit of the doubt, Professor Z had apparently not carefully read the chapters that 1 had previously submitted, and that he was wrong in neglecting to do so. He speculated that some of the potential causes might be "the different relationship" a professor has with each student. He also mentioned the problem of time constraints on professors.8 To prevent such occurrences, Prof C doesn't allow students to submit portions of their theses "bit by bit," that a thesis only has meaning as a whole document, not piece by piece. The best thing for the student to have done is "just avoid the ones with the bad reputations." (Although I did not tell him this, I don't think that this is a very effective option, to say the very least: sometimes you simply have to take what funding is there, wherever - or whoever - it comes from.)

Regarding various options to take, his first impulse was "There's nothing else to do other than finish it, I guess...That's tough luck." When pressed, he vaguely mentioned speaking to a dean, but he was not very confident on how useful that might be; he also felt that it would be very difficult to go back and investigate past difficulties. Overall, unlike the previous interviewees, he was not very familiar at all with available institutional remedies, or many other possibilities for that matter. Late in the interview, he did mention meeting with members of the thesis committee; he didn't know how long Course 2 has required that particular body.

In what has become a familiar refrain, he said that there should be no time limit on Ph.D. theses because they pertain to "open-ended problems... you don't know when a solution is going to present itself." Like Prof. B, he reminded me that Professor Z's story might be quite different, focusing on the student's perception that he did a good job. He also joked about "professional grad students," telling me about a neighbor of his who is "about 40" and still going to school, not at MIT.

Overall, even though he has heard of the issue at faculty meetings every so often, I'm not sure that Prof. C fully accepted the possibility of this scenario actually occurring, choosing to focus instead upon the student's possible shortcomings: "I'm sure if the student had done a really excellent job, Professor Z would not have done what he did."

Footnotes

• 8.Note again the similarities of language.

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