Thesis problem

trace51

Hi all,

I am wondering if anyone could tell me what normally happens in my situation,

I am doing an MSc and my original deadline for my thesis was the first of this month. I ran into big problems accessing participants at the same time as my supervisor was on leave. When she got back she felt i should start a new thesis (in late may/early june) with an extension until september. I have now run into problems with participants again, although not unsolvable they are time consuming, I am always waiting to hear back from people and can't do anything to speed this up. As far as I understand the external examiner looks at theses in september, so what happens if I don't make this? how much more, if any, of an extension am I likely to get? my supervisor is on leave again so I can't talk to her about it, I am really stressed about this so any help would be good!

TheBody

Sound like your supervisor needs a boot up the arse. Any supervisor worth a damn would not abondon their student like that.

Anyway, you would want to get things sorted as you may be liable to pay fees for another year if it's left too late.

JuliusCaesar

Just moved this to Researcher from Psychology. Figured they're right next door to each other, but you are probably more appropriate.

trace51

sorry, researcher probably makes sense, I am new to this I didn't even know there was a researcher forum, its a psych MSc so thats why I thought of here. you are right TheBody, she probably does need that boot! even when she isn't on leave its next to impossible to contact her

JuliusCaesar

I have to say that sounds mad to me - a new topic! I'd always tell students to have the literature review done before Christmas, and that's expecting the full thesis done by end June. If you don't have enough participants, could you run it as a pilot study? But I wouldn't start a new topic now, unless very similar to the old one.

trace51

i had everything ready earlier than she wanted for the original thesis, lit revew, method etc, but got no feedback for months. I was ready to run the procedure from march but she told me she had ordered the equipment i needed and would let me know when it was available. I heard nothing, went ahead and sourced participants, ran into a (solvable at this point) problem and couldnt contact her about my problem or the lack of equipment. turns out she 'couldnt get' the equipment and by the time she got in touch (6 weeks later) it was too late to solve the problem anyway.

so, yes, I started an entirely different topic, although it is an area that I am very familiar with. despite this i felt that 3 months was very short to complete the whole thing but she just said not to worry!

sorry about the long post, I am very stressed about it all, I even tried contacting another lecturer but no answer on the phone and no reply to my email!