Upheaval

Have I told you lately that I'm very, very glad to be graduating soon?  Maybe?  Well now I have extra reason to be very glad I'm almost done, and extra motivation to finish as fast as possible.

The Queen announced last Friday that she's moving to another university in August.  Yikes.  We have a really large research group - 18 grad students.  That's A LOT of lives to turn upside down.  Fifth years and up will graduate ASAP.  Fourth years might have the option to stay behind and finish, depending on personal circumstances, project, and actual closeness to graduation.  Third years are royally screwed.  The second years and first years are early enough in their graduate studies that switching groups (if they decided not to go with The Queen) wouldn't set them back very much (if at all) if they decided not to go.

Third years are really too far from graduation for them to stay behind to finish their research, but they've already made substantial progress towards their dissertation.  They could move with The Queen, leaving behind the lives they've been building here (and homes owned!) for the past 3 years much sooner than they were planning.  They could conceivably switch groups, but this would likely set them back at least a year, and would require a complete change in project.  The only possible exception to this is one student who could possibly switch into his collaborator's group and continue more or less on what he's been doing.  They could also drop out.  Sadly, it's entirely possible that at least one of them will.  They could get MAs, which would only require filing paperwork.  Or they could quickly wrap up what they're currently working on, and write up a thesis for an MS.

I'm so incredibly grateful that if this had to happen that it's at this point in my graduate career.  But it still sucks watching my friends and labmates struggling with a really, really difficult decision.