Done with Defense

So finally I am done with my Ph.D. and I said the final bye to academic studies. I have never felt more relaxed in my life than these days. To begin with, the final dissertation defense was not difficult. Everything went perfect, as planned. The presentation lasted exactly 35 minutes and the Q and A lasted about half hour as well. The committee was happy with my answers and had just a few cosmetic suggestions at the end. In next few days, I corrected the dissertation and submitted to the graduate school. Also I started talking to Caterpillar to initiate the relocation process. All the paper work is done and now I am just waiting for the moving date. At the same time I am excited for the shopping phase as I plan to buy everything new – dinnerware, silverware, kitchen utensils, auxiliary equipments, furniture and even clothes. It is going to take me a few weeks before I feel settled there.

This spare moment brings me to thinking that this feat means nothing if I don’t succeed in industry. My knowledge and skills will be tested with real problems and real devices. In this course, I have learnt many proven theories and introduced a few of mine own but a new theory remains a theory until you prove them. It has to be corroborated by some experiments. One more way to put this into perspective is that information gained in engineering is very book intensive and if I don’t experience this knowledge first hand, it will be long gone. Perhaps more than anyone else, I want to put my knowledge and ideas to test, a test that does not involve papers and pens.