A Master's degree... in science!

Last month I completed the requirements for an MS in Kinesiology from the University of Wisconsin - Madison. In my quest for a Ph.D., this was a significant step, and I'm super-pleased to have made it this far. It takes a village to raise a child, and the same holds true in pursuing an advanced degree, particularly when it comes to birthing a thesis!

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In the University of Wisconsin - Madison Kinesiology Department, there are two tracks for the MS degree. The non-thesis track, as the name implies, does not require writing a thesis, and is based on completing a body of coursework. The thesis-track MS, on the other hand, requires most of the same coursework, along with the submission of a thesis. Pursuing a Ph.D. requires the MS-thesis, so I matriculated in the thesis-track program in the Fall of my 50th year.

After fits, starts and a pretty bumpy return to academia, I finally gained traction in my second year of graduate school. With a perfectly imperfect data-set in-hand, I wrestled with descriptive statistics, inferential statistics, regressions, Fourier Analysis, Wavelet Transformations and the lonely road of writing. With a lot of help from my academic advisor, Dr. Brittany Travers, the rough document became a more coherent whole - what would ultimately become my Master's thesis.

Completing the thesis provided a sense of accomplishment, though another hurdle remained - defending said thesis. This penultimate step involved standing in front of my graduate committee and making an intelligent argument in support of the thesis' scientific relevance. Even a couple of weeks prior to the defense, it wasn't entirely clear that my handle on the statistics was much more than a house of cards, ready to topple at the slightest headwind. Thankfully I had some unstructured days to refine my understanding of partial eta-squared and to polish the PowerPoint presentation. Those full days of work filled my sails with confidence, and I felt ready to make my case for the merits of my thesis.

After leading back-to-back discussion sections with first-year UW students, I furiously pedaled my bike to the defense to set up my computer, notes and the projector. One by one committee members rolled in, and it was show-time. After presenting my argument for 35-minutes, and a solid 20-minutes answering questions, committee members ushered me to the door.

I wasn't prepared for this step in the process, though it immediately became clear what was going on. After nearly an hour of making my case, the jury was convening to make their verdict! Standing just outside the door of the conference room, I happily conversed with friends for the first ten minutes, and the time passed quickly. Another few minutes went by, and I felt my heart beating faster and faster as I fabricated outcomes that changed with each passing minute. Finally, the door cracked open and I immediately saw a smiling Dr. Travers. Behind her the other committee members were also smiling. The smiles seemed like a good sign.

Once I walked back into the conference room, the smiles became hugs and congratulations - the thesis had been approved without mandatory revisions! With the thesis approved and the appropriate documents signed, only one step remained - the depositing of the thesis at the UW Memorial Library.

Reliable sources had warned me about the depositing process, and one person went so far as to call it the most infuriating part of the entire grad-school process. Gulp! I'm not the most fastidious, detail-oriented person to roam this Earth, and getting the formatting just-right for the powers-that-be in the basement of Memorial Library sounded to me like Sisyphus' revenge. Having been duly warned, I spend the next weekend combing through my thesis looking for stray spacing, improperly formatted citations and checking each page for appropriate headers and footers.

The following Tuesday I descended into the bowels of Memorial Library and the very nice people at the bindery signed off on my formatting. Deeming it acceptable, deposit-able, and otherwise ready to molder away with all the other theses, this last box was checked. The MS degree was complete!

The reality of completing this step of the process is still sinking in, though with each passing day, the satisfaction of completing the MS lands more deeply. While I continue to enjoy the satisfaction of this completion, freshness/imminence of the Ph.D. now looms larger and clearer. In the coming weeks I'll write more about my plans for this forthcoming next-chapter.

In the meantime, a big shout-out to all the many people who have supported me in these first few years of grad school. I could not have gotten this far along in the process without your love and support - emaho!