Thesis Update

My contract with the university ends at the beginning of September 2013. And no contract means no salary means Big Trouble. To avoid Big Trouble, I will finish my PhD before my contract ends. Yes, it’s that easy.

Well, maybe not. Maybe finishing a PhD takes a little more than just the fear of Big Trouble. Maybe it requires pushing through really hard to make sure I can finally go and live in the same place as my husband. Maybe it takes a little anger and a spoonful of frustration.

With 10 months on the countdown, things do look quite good here, and I thought it’s time for an update on my thesis.

I’d like to go chapter by chapter, to illustrate what I still want to do.

Chapter 1: Introduction: Finished and got feedback from co-promotor and promotor. I do want to go over it once I have all chapters finished to see if the description still covers the contents.

Chapter 2: Literature Review: Finished and got feedback from co-promotor and promotor. I want to go over it once more and put more emphasis on the theory I ended up using for my theoretical work.

Chapter 3: Experimental Results: Finished and got feedback from co-promotor. I think it’s done done done, unless my promotor has comments.

Chapter 4: Parameter Analysis: Finished and got feedback from co-promotor. Not sure if my promotor agrees with the way I structured the chapter….

Chapter 5: Modified Bond Model: Aka my theoretical chapter. It’s in progress, and I really hope to finish it next week – unless other work is going to get in the way again.

Chapter 6: Probabilistic Assessment: I still need to implement to comparison between the Modified Bond Model and my experimental results in there, but the bulk of the chapter is finished. I sent it off to prospective committee member because he’s an expert in structural reliability.

Chapter 7: Application to slab bridges: I need to add one paragraph on skewed bridges, but other than that it is finished, but still needs to be discussed with my supervisors.

Chapter 8: Conclusions: Work to be done!

As you can see, I have quite some material ready there. In fact, my goal is to finish the first draft before the December holidays. Afterwards, I can’t defend it right away. In Delft, it takes time for the promotor to approve it, then compile the committee, then send it out, then make changes and then print the whole thing. I’m still hoping for printing and defending before September 2013 though.