I submitted my thesis today. I had verified and changed a few things in my bibliography, I made some changes in chapters that I hadn’t proofread so well (chapters 5 and 6), and then, just a little before 7 AM, I began printing. I had to print at night or early in the morning, because otherwise someone might start a print job and use up my $25 per ream paper. After I’d printed, I diligently went through both copies and made sure that all 145 pages were there and in the right order.
After that, I had to go on a scavenger hunt sort of trip. From my office, I went to the Registrar to drop off my Application for Degree. Then I went to the Cashier’s Office to pay $93 of fees for binding and microfilming. After that, I took all my copies and forms and the yellow receipt from the Cashier, which right now is the ABSOLUTELY MOST IMPORTANT PIECE OF PAPER I HAVE, up to the Office for Graduate Studies. There, it was checked that all my copies and forms were in order, distributed in four different piles, the yellow receipt was signed again, and then I was sent to the library. There, I dropped my two envelopes with the thesis copies off for binding, and got another signature on the yellow form of life and death. Then, I had to go to the Registrar again, to turn another few forms in and get the final signature on the yellow form. And that was it. Now the yellow form is in a water-proof safe. There’s nothing else I have to do to get the Master’s degree, but until I get that, the receipt is pretty much the substitute for it. I’m actually consider getting it framed until then.
In addition to the $93 for the fees, I have to pay for a diploma frame [1], starting at $180, which is probably the one I’ll take, because it matches best with the one I already have. And then there’s the cost of having it framed: Sheepskin needs to be framed as soon as possible, or it deteriorates. And I’m also getting a book set for $147. So… getting a graduate degree is pretty expensive: probably about $600, but it’s worth it.
Now I’ve started to hack around in the Java compiler again, because I just cannot accept that adding inheritance to annotations was so hard.
