Grad School- Thesis Defense

Thesis defenses have different formats depending on your program and your university. The format for my program is a public defense of about 1-2 hours which anyone can attend followed by a private defense with your committee which can be anywhere from 1-3 hours long. Typically, your advisor introduces you at the public defense. By introduce, I mean that the advisor tells where you did undergrad, what publications you’ve written and mentions any other honors your earned while in grad school. Prof Sunshine totally fucked up my introduction- about the only detail he got correct was my name. He got my undergrad university and program wrong, he also “forgot” about a major first author publication or that I won a prize for my presentation in France. To make matters worse- all of this information was in the program- which Prof Sunshine had in his hand! He then said “well, she took a break for a while and now she’s here to defend finally.” Prof Sunshine also “forgot” to remind the audience that I have a hearing deficit (which I had asked him to do). So I got to start my thesis defense by stammering out that I have a hearing deficit, so I need people to catch my attention (by waving of clearing their throat) and look at me when asking questions. Not the most graceful way to start. So I start giving my public presentation. Everything is going well when a cell phone starts ringing. Prof Sunshine then proceeds to take the call!!! WTF?!? Can we say rude. So I glare at him (and found our later that Mum flipped him off) until he hangs up and then continue. I get back on track- until I realize that Prof Sunshine is busy texting someone! HELLO?!? I completely lost my train of thought and just stood there. My department head who was at this point glaring at Prof Sunshine too, then gets me back on track by asking me a “gimme” question. I complete the talk and handle the few questions.

I then got a brief break while my committee went to get coffee. At this point I should probably explain that counter to “tradition” Prof Sunshine did not provide refreshments for my defense. Technically, I could have ordered refreshments and charged them to Prof Sunshine, but I didn’t even make the effort. One of my committee members referenced the lack of refreshments, so I pointed out that “having been away from the department for 3 years, I thought Prof Sunshine would have handled the refreshments because I wouldn’t even know what grant number to charge them to.” Yes, it was passive aggressive but I was beyond “playing nice” at that point. During my private defense, Prof Sunshine then sprung a “we haven’t been able to replicate any of these experiments” on me. WHAT?!? Then, Prof Sunshine proceeded to tell my committee that the lab was unable to replicate my in vitro results with a DIFFERENT cell line than I had used. I seriously wanted to say “well of course you couldn’t replicate the results you dumbass.” Instead I had to play all nice and say “well, introducing different conditions, such as new cell lines, is not REPLICATING the experiment- it is determining how the experiment works under those conditions!” Luckily my committee agreed with me and over-ruled him. I then spent the next 2.5 hours talking about what I would have done differently if I had “unlimited” funds to design ideal experiment. I was then dismissed to go “wait outside in the hall”. This is when your committee decides whether they will pass you or fail you.

Traditionally, if you pass, your advisor comes to get you and greets you with “Congradulations, Dr. ________!” That didn’t happen. Instead another committee member came to greet me. Prof Sunshine did not even acknowledge me when I re-entered the room- just gave me my list of revisions and left. Didn’t even say congrats. Never called me Dr. And the traditional party with cake and champagne? Yeah, that didn’t happen either. Instead, I went with my husband and parents to Panara to get a bite to eat before we traveled the 400 miles back home. Mum and Dad surprised me with Dom Perignon when we got home, though, so at least I got my champagne!