OP OG wrote:
>Let me preface this with an apology. Many professors are quite honestly exploitative of their grad students in a >way that virtually any other career field would accept, and colleges are often unwilling to help.
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I have noticed this too. It is nasty at my school. My advisor made me so insecure about my issue I thought it was just me and my inability to see through my problem; However, thankfully I can say that despite everything it wasn’t my fault. I was set up to fail.
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This is why SMART has no business funding for either a research based MS or gods forbid a PhD...it is simply not set out to allow for the kinds of varied disasters that often happen in any research based program. SMART literally views MS and PhD programs as if they were as deterministic as undergrad, and treats its charges accordingly in their procedures and rulings.
OP OG wrote:
>Can you switch degree types? Most colleges are willing to award master's with just classes which I assume you've >already taken, it's usually just a slightly different degree type. Your facility would have to authorize the change >of degree, but I don't see any reason why they wouldn't allow you to do so.
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My SF would support a degree change as long as it is close to the same field. They recommended the engineering college; however, only 9 of my credit would transfer. I would be playing catchup because I don't have the background. I could transfer and start over.
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Check to see if your SF actually cares whether or not you have a thesis or non-thesis MS. If they don't care that would be your best bet to just hammer out any extra course work with an extension and then graduate with a non-thesis MS if it exists for your program. You owe nothing to your shitty advisor or anyone else to complete your work, just get out as intact as you can.
Other alternative is to literally just shop around the MS degree list and find the pareto front of "courses in common"-"most similar degree" and do the math and how long each would take and run them by your SF to see if anything works. Again, non-thesis option only because there is no way in hell SMART would permit you enough time to finish if it required starting over even on MS thesis grade work.
OP OG wrote:
>If you can't change your degree, you need to keep elevating your issue past your advisor to the department chair >or perhaps further to the academic dean. If you tap every higher authority and nobody will budge, contact either >the grad student association or the alumni association of your university. The alumni association has no authority >but it does have pull and may be able to work things in a positive direction for you.
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I have told the department chair however my issue has not been taken seriously. My school has a bad habit of keeping students around. The average length of a masters degree is four years. A college-wide issue I was not aware of until I got here. My complaint is the norm.
Would it be worth reaching out to the SMART admin? I like my SF and the people there; however, I have been set up to fail. I don't know if there is a clause in my contract for students like me.
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Real talk: SMART doesn't give a shit about you. You are a product to them and deliverable to your SF. If you can't make something work on your own they won't care and will at most
maybe give you an extension if you can make the case you can finish an alternative plan quickly enough and in manner that satisfies both SMART and your SF. Otherwise they will throw you out in the cold and set you up to repay an obscene debt in an unreasonable timeframe.
Worth keeping in mind, SMART has literally no power and authority to do anything about your situation at your university because your university doesn't care if they're paying your way. If their money stops and you have to leave they'll find another sucker to con into the credentialist ponzi scheme that is graduate education on the modern university.
Something that puzzles me slightly is this:
OP OG wrote:I have considered a commercial software; however, I was told I would not be awarded my degree if I use a non-publicly sourced software.
Who exactly told you that? Because that seems quite frankly bizarre; commercial software is used all the time in various aspects of research for different problems and disciplines. Your best shot to not just have to abandon ship program wise is attacking this standard (if it isn't just something your advisor/department is lying about) at higher levels in your university because it is quite frankly insane.
Last option that springs to mind is shopping around at OTHER universities for degrees that either match yours or are close, would take transfer credit (at the MS level you'd probably need to email the department and ask about what would carry over) and again offer non-thesis options. I can't stress the non-thesis part enough, because as you seem to describe it your current research is at a dead end indefinitely (and even if not captured by your shitty advisor) and there is just no way in hell to restart that process without triggering SMART's wrath.
Good luck. I hope you escape the fate of winding up in the Debtor's Discord in the future.