The ability to calculate how long before you graduate is highly overrated. I would never have wanted to calculate the time it would take. I would have been even less motivated if I thought it would take forever. There is a limit though. Most universities allow 10 years for you to complete your degree once you have reached a certain stage in your graduate studies. The clock doesn’t start ticking from the time you began your degree. I suppose it depends on the university as well.

My advisor was very flexible. Basically, you controlled when you finished–not him. This means that once your motivation went to zero, you could be floundering in ABD (all but dissertation, aka all but dead) hell. However, you can’t reach ABD until all research is done leading up to writing that thick book that no one will probably ever read. You’re required to get it printed and bound in hardcover and pay for it to be microfiched. There are the copyright fees as well. You never order just one hardbound copy. The university requires a copy, as does the department and your advisor. Then, of course, you can get one for yourself (highly recommended as you never know when you might need the information again–say for an interview) and one to bestow on your parents. Basically outside of yourself, no one reads the thing. Regular people wouldn’t understand it, so the “gift” to the parents means very little other than they are thankful that you will be earning a real salary rather than the pittance you got as a graduate teaching assistant. Of course, that is dependent on if you were able to get a job out of graduate school. Some specialties just aren’t conducive to finding a job other than teaching and torturing your own graduate students. My experience in chemistry graduate school is that the least able and least talented went into teaching. Those who were really good at teaching went into industry.