Maybe I shouldn't have started this blog now, not with everything that's been going on.

Obviously, the first thing that comes through here in the initiating letter is the parents’ belief in everything their son tells them. Just because they see their son working all night, they believe he is doing his best effort when, in fact, he is not. He could have done the work in half, maybe a third of the time, if he had just asked for assistance from the proper authorities on how to program in Visual Basic.

Instead, he has monst likely relied on books and self-study, only going online to verify his results from astronomy sites.

The software he showed us wouldn’t pass the simplest computer-programming course we offer; it ignores so many rules. It’s difficult to believe that’s the product of 24-months of work, especially since he has no other subjects to worry about.

I could take all the blame. I have been too lax with him. I should have set him deadlines since day one, a month to write the paper, a few weeks to achieve a certain result and display. There were sometimes I asked him when he would show up next, and what he would be bringing for my inspection. But that has been too passive, including the fact that I didn’t scold him when he didn’t show up at the agreed upon day and with the expected work to present.

After all, he has no chemicals to wait for anyone to deliver, no machinery he has to reserve for to use. Everything has been at his own pace.

His parents try to appeal to pity, giving their personal situation. But what goes unsaid in the chairman’s reply is we cannot with a clear conscience pass such a student with poor work ethics reflected in his shoddy unacceptable output. It’s the price he has had to pay doing a thesis all by himself instead of with any of the other experimental labs available. The panelists only gave him the right complexity of topic for a single person to complete in the time frame we know he has.

They have even given him a way out: just explain justifiably why he couldn’t complete the objectives he set out to do. I just don’t know what he did those ten days reprieve given to him, that halfway through the grace period he had to ask me to assist him in writing his paper instead of showing me some results already.

So far it’s been forty-eight hours since the chairman sent out his reply and there has been no word, or, as I feared, a request for the parents to go to the department and talk with the panel.

There has been a rumor from the vice dean’s office that he has tried to enroll, again without even meeting with the panel or me first. We are supposed to wait for him to tell us the status of his thesis as usual. Well, not anymore. As soon as he confirms his enrollment, he’s on a strict four-month step-by-step work regimen, and every time he doesn’t deliver, it’s a mark that gets recorded for his parents to see if they do come around questioning as to any further delay.