Sat on a students thesis proposal committee. This is when the student presents the work they plan to carry out for their PhD degree. As usual it is interesting to see what the student just does not know. We pointed out how important it was to know the basics of your project. I was supposed to be on another one tomorrow but the student on Friday contacted me and asked if they could first get the proposal to me on Monday leaving only 2 days to read it (since they tend to be 10 single spaced pages this is not possible with the other things I have to do). I told them it was not all right and unless they could get the proposal to me on Saturday they would have to postpone the meeting. They did not meet my Saturday deadline. Since the student set up the date they knew well in advance when the proposal had to be finished. It is important that students understand there are deadlines - we have them for grants, getting papers in, teaching.