OK, so I'm getting towards submitting my thesis, and I today I went into the faculty PG office to check what I need to do, having looked at all the official regs. The conversation when something like this:

Me: where do I need to go to get the bits to hand in with my thesis, like the certificate that says I have no debts, have attended all training etc.

Admin Girl: You only need to hand in what it says in the regs.

Me: Yes, this is what is in the regs.

AG: Oh, well you dont need all that, only what is in these regs.

Hands me regs. I look. It says just what I thought it did.

AG: (looking confused) Oh, well you dont need those.

WTF?

I am realising how happy I've been in my little writing world. I dont want to come out of it and have to deal with all this bureaucratic ****

I had to do a transfer report from MPhil to PhD. I read the relevent documentation it said something like around 6 pages with various stipulations about content etc. I prepared the report and the committee refused to read it because it was too long. My supervisor brought the documents which were still 'current' to their attention, it seems due to the huge numbers of PhD students at the uni they are trying to get them down in size and have not updated the docs. It was a real pain trying to get it sorted out.

If your thinking of staying in academia there is a general rule when it comes to such things, this I have found though both personal expeiance as a lectuer and from my supervisors observations - Administration is something you find out about after you were supposed to have done it.

Tiggs

Tiggs, I like your rule, it is so true.

I got disillusioned with admin on my first day, when we got handed regs stating we had to do a biannual report once a year .... and it hasnt got any better since then.

Mind you, having got paranoid over all the stuff about required font size, margins, etc etc I went and looked at three recent theses in the library yesterday and they were all different and none obeyed all the detail and they all passed. Maybe I need to learn to chill