Tomorrow, as main supervisior, I'm responsible of conducting 5 oral MA-thesis exams, all in one go.

The exams involve 2 different external examiners, 2 different co-supervisors, 10 students, whereof 1 is from another study programme with different exam requirements and expectations - and not the least, the reading of all together more than 700 pages of writing. I have NEVER in my previous almost 7 years at ITU had so much administrative overhead involved in the planning of exams. One thing is that at ITU, supervisors themselves have to find examiners, exam dates, co-ordinate with the co-supervisors etc with no help from the study administration, another thing has been the additional interesting challenges added this time, like the fact that people didnt respond to their emails, or had moved to a new job, and then suddenly one of the external examiners weren't in the approved board of examiners anymore, and that then, when I got him approved, he hadnt been approved by the head of the other study programme etc etc. I have made SO many phone calls to get things set right.

I really like supervising, especially MA-thesis students, but with all the admin overhead that goes into getting them through the formal system, I am honestly quite relieved that I dont have to bother with any more exams for the next year or so!!
# posted by Lisbeth at: 10:04