On the rain slick precipice of research

I’m getting close to a crossroads in my grad school education. Before too long I will have to decide if I want to opt for a thesis or a non-thesis masters. I can keep coasting on my current path until the spring, but come May I should probably know if I’m going to hang a left or a right at the intersection.

If I opt for a non-thesis masters I need to take a comprehensive test over four core subject areas and continue to take another three courses (after the ones I will have completed come May). If I opt for a thesis masters then I’m done with courses in May and I need to start working on my thesis.

Realistically the thesis option will take at least a semester longer than the non-thesis option, however a thesis is an open ended proposition, so there is the risk that it might take even longer than that.

What’s the attraction for the thesis option then? Well, everyone I’ve talked to says if I have aspirations of getting a PhD (and I admit I harbor such dark desires) then in the long run it’s faster to do a thesis masters if the thesis is on a related topic to my eventual PhD dissertation topic. So again, there is a bit of risk involved, but it should be faster if everything goes my way.

Of course the scary part of the equation is that I should probably have some idea of what my dissertation topic will be in order to ensure I’m choosing a useful thesis topic. So that’s where I am now, starting to look around and decide what area of research I would be interested in. I don’t need to answer that question for at least 6 months, but I should probably be thinking about it. I confess, I find the question to be daunting. Whatever I choose I will be spending a lot of time thinking about. How would you elect to murder a considerable amount of your free time for the next seven years? [yeah, yeah, besides becoming a baby dispenser……]

I’ve already had an hour and a half meeting with a professor that would make a likely advisor, so I guess I already know which direction I'm leaning. I just have to decide if I truly want to jump. The sub-topic within computer science that I seem to find most stimulating is knowledge representation. I guess I need to start reading more about it to see if I can call it home.

On a completely unrelated note…..Figs appear to be in season. Publix had two varieties of figs with a buy one get one free special. So we bought one of each and decided to have us a good ol’ fashioned fig-off. We got Kadota figs which are green and smaller than the Brown Turkey figs which are larger and purple. We’ve been eating them in a variety of culinary situations: breakfasts, appetizers, both sweet and savory. Thus far I think the Brown Turkey figs are winning, but not by much. Here’s a photo from a figgy breakfast we had over the weekend. In this instance the figs were simple quartered and drizzled with honey. Très artistique, no?