Aligned with what Dagon said, there is no particular incentive driving for it to be otherwise.
Somewhat more cynically, I have observed that it is very much to the professor’s advantage to be able to credibly assert that you are “still N months away from graduating”, where N is whatever number they feel like using in that moment to manipulate you to whatever ends they wish. Maybe they want to dissuade you from taking an internship. Maybe they want you to focus more on your research and less on your courses. Regardless, it seems the universal state is that the academic adviser will push back on your stated graduation date objectives, and since the entire system is designed around inhibiting any kind of firm commitment to a graduation plan, they can always win the argument.
For me, a lot of the panic came from the unreasonable number of documents that needed to be filed with certain gaps of time between them, such that you need to have document A signed and filed several months before being permitted to submit document B, and then document C could only be filed if document B was accepted, but it took an uncertain amount of time for that to happen, and meanwhile the deadline for graduation is approaching, etc.
Answer 1: Moloch likes it this way—no participant thinks it’s the best plan, but everyone is afraid that making it easier and more certain will reduce their power.
Answer 2: It’s a powerful signal and in order to remain so it must be costly. If it weren’t so difficult and uncertain (leading to stress and panic), it wouldn’t signal as well.
Why is the end of a PhD maintained as such a stressful and panic-filled process?
Aligned with what Dagon said, there is no particular incentive driving for it to be otherwise.
Somewhat more cynically, I have observed that it is very much to the professor’s advantage to be able to credibly assert that you are “still N months away from graduating”, where N is whatever number they feel like using in that moment to manipulate you to whatever ends they wish. Maybe they want to dissuade you from taking an internship. Maybe they want you to focus more on your research and less on your courses. Regardless, it seems the universal state is that the academic adviser will push back on your stated graduation date objectives, and since the entire system is designed around inhibiting any kind of firm commitment to a graduation plan, they can always win the argument.
For me, a lot of the panic came from the unreasonable number of documents that needed to be filed with certain gaps of time between them, such that you need to have document A signed and filed several months before being permitted to submit document B, and then document C could only be filed if document B was accepted, but it took an uncertain amount of time for that to happen, and meanwhile the deadline for graduation is approaching, etc.
Answer 1: Moloch likes it this way—no participant thinks it’s the best plan, but everyone is afraid that making it easier and more certain will reduce their power.
Answer 2: It’s a powerful signal and in order to remain so it must be costly. If it weren’t so difficult and uncertain (leading to stress and panic), it wouldn’t signal as well.