Sorry guys that the posting has been so light recently. I’ve been out in Utah for the past several days on vacation, and won’t be back until the 5th. One of my best friends got married yesterday, and Tiff and I wanted to be here to support them. It was also a good opportunity to get some modeling work done for my thesis, and to spend some time with my family.
My thesis, for those of you who want to know, has little to do with rocketry. I’m doing some investigations into pulsed, low-pressure fluid jets, and one possible way of inducing the pulsation. Unfortunately, it’s ended up becoming a long, drawn-out process due to manufacturing limitations in the waterjet nozzles. I had been hoping to have the finished nozzles with me when I came out here, but I didn’t get them to the last post-processing step in time, and they should be done by about the time I get back to California. I realized last week that the igniter cart I built for MSS happens to be fairly readily adaptable for some of the testing I want to do, so I may just be able to pull this off.
My advice to anyone out there who wants to do a thesis or dissertation?
- Find a topic that you can really enjoy
- Find a topic that can get funding for so you don’t have to pay for everything out of pocket
- If you know the field you want to be working in, try and find a topic that will be directly relevant to that field
- If you are working your way through school, try and find a research topic that your company could fund. There are few things better than multi-bird-killing-stones
- Find a topic that is related closely enough to work that your advisors have been doing that they can actually advise you
- Do a bit of research in the area before deciding on your theis topic
- Make sure that the topic you are researching is one that you actually have (or can easily get) a significant amount of relevant knowledge about
- If you don’t want to end up as a perpetual student or a professor, don’t even bother doing a thesis or dissertation–industry experience is usually far more valuable than getting a Masters or Doctorate anyway
Ok, I feel better now. Now I can get back to work.
Jonathan Goff
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