I am thrilled to say I have completed my Master of Science in Mechanical and Aerospace Engineering! I intended to do this blog post a month ago right around graduation, but the weeks since have been pleasantly busier than I anticipated. In this post I’ll back up to where my previous post left off at the end of March. 

This final semester of grad school was a big, constant push to complete my master’s thesis. Classes weren’t overly demanding, so the challenge was designing my experiment, completing it, and writing on all parts of the project. Unlike most projects in engineering school, I was totally on my own, with the exception of input and feedback from my advisor. A big part of my project hinged upon receiving 4 stainless steel, 3D-printed rocket nozzles using facilities on campus. Fortunately, despite the university closures occuring in March due to COVID19, I received my printed parts the day after I finished my previous blog post. Prior to this point, I was considering taking an additional summer semester to give myself more time and complete a better experiment. When I was told my nozzles were ready, I had exactly 2 weeks before my defense, and I decided to just suck it up and go for it. I’d rather work my tail off for 2 weeks and finish, rather than pay for extra time and probably still end up doing a busy 2 week push in the summer anyway. In retrospect, I think I made the right decision, but those 2 weeks were probably the toughest of my life. I conducted the experiment, designed an analytical model from scratch, and wrote the second half of my entire thesis in this time, averaging over 8 hours of work on it daily (on top of regular class and TA duties), with one day even topping out at nearly 13 hours of effort. 

I finished the draft of the thesis document a couple day before my defense for my committee to read through, and then I turned my attention to the presentation slides in the couple days prior to defending. My slides finished at 10:00PM the night before, with my first complete presentation run-through occurring then also. 

My defense was scheduled for 8:30AM on Wednesday, April 15, and it went really well! Dressed in a jacket, tie, sweatpants, and slippers, I took the full 40 minutes presenting to my committee with some classmates and my roommates all tuning in via Microsoft Teams. I answered a few questions, and then my committee convened to discuss. They returned 10 minutes later to inform me that I had passed! While this wasn’t a surprise, the final confirmation was nonetheless a relief. They did however want me to repeat my experiment, making one minor modification to the setup. To them that sounded like no big deal, but for me that would mean another entire day of setting up and running the test, then also discussing the results, which at the time, was the absolute last thing I wanted to do. 

Once we all signed off the call, I felt at a loss for what to do with myself. I still had 2 weeks before the final draft would be due, so I could afford a day or two off for a much needed, and in my opinion, well-deserved break. There wasn’t this enormous sense of relief I was expecting right away, but after a couple hours, I started to feel the load lifted off my shoulders, and I became immensely happy to be finished with this particular milestone. This was by far the biggest hurdle, and I’d cleared it! You can read more about the project, as well as download the PDF and presentation slides here.  

I spent the rest of the day playing video games and board games, walking the dog, and napping. A final push it was indeed.