Hey all,

Here's the problem that has been bugging me for the last few weeks. I submitted my PhD thesis to my department last August for examination. However, I found out from my supervisor that my department only sent my thesis to examiners last November for examination. So it took them about 3 months to get my thesis to examiners. Before submitting my thesis, my supervisor already has elected examiners to examine my thesis and they all agreed to do so. Thus, there would be no problem in getting examiners to examine my thesis. And crazy thing is, when I confronted the staff who is supposed to handle my thesis examination, she nonchalantly said that she was so busy handling something else till she forgot to get my thesis properly to examiners. I was beyond furious to learn how unprofessional she is when handling my thesis. Now I am thinking to lodge a report to the Dean of my school regarding how unprofessional my department was in handling my viva voce. But then at the other side of spectrum, I'm scared that my department will have their vendetta against me when they found out that I made a report. Another option is to lodge a report to Dean once I graduated from PhD program but that seems like a cowardly move.

What should I do?

Maybe this person just made a mistake?

Honestly, I would just leave it. I know this sounds like a big deal to you because it's your viva, but in the grand scheme of things, this isn't a massive issue for the person involved. The Dean will ignore you or best case scenario, apologise. If anything is said to the person who made this error, it will be simply, be more careful next time, and to the person's manager, make sure you have checks in place so this doesn't happen again. It's really not worth your time.

Suggestion: complain yes but not to the department but to the administrator's line manager and make it formal. Students tend to complain about the department but academics have no power over administrators.

Forgot to add - a lot of these complaints are targeted at the wrong person and so cause zero grief to the guilty party but a lot to people who had nothing to do with it.

Not sure where you get the "purposefully" from. Also, frankly, I am wondering a little why you didn't follow up yourself instead of simply assuming that everything worked as planned?

@walter_opera While it might be partially my fault for not updating with my department regarding the viva, it should be worth to note that I paid thousands of bucks as a service to get my thesis handled by department and examined by examiners. Thus they made money from my thesis getting examined. Therefore I assumed everything was fine since I already paid for service.