When I talked to DWE this morning he asked me if I was "feeling defensive" and it kind of annoyed me. But of course now that I'm done I think it's hilarious. (And I'd like to briefly say that DWE was particularly wonderful and supportive today, which mostly makes up for how freaking often he is out of town.)
My thesis has officially been defended, and I think it went quite well. I should mention at this point that thesis "defense" is, in my opinion, sort of a courtesy title in my program. We don't exactly get ripped to shreds. Basically we give a 20 minute PowerPoint presentation on our thesis, and professors (and students, if they want) ask us a couple of questions. Sometimes the questions are rather pointed. If you have your shit together, it's no big deal. What I had to do today should not be compared to what PhD candidates have to do.
I was still freakin' nervous, of course. I wasn't very worried about getting questions that I couldn't answer (because I do, generally speaking, have my shit together), but I was concerned about sounding inarticulate or getting tripped up in the middle of a sentence or going over my time. As it turns out, I managed to present the information clearly and articulately and without looking at my notes; I had to rush a bit at the end because of time constraints, but I essentially said everything I wanted to say. I knew the answers to the questions I was asked, and for one question I had the "right" answer insofar as I had done the correct thing methodologically.
So now you're saying to yourself, okay, great, but why is she blogging instead of out partying right now? I was out celebrating, of course, from about 6 to midnight, but then DWE and I headed home so that we could spend a little quality time together, and now he's sleeping, but I'm not quite tired yet. Well, okay, I'm tired now, but I wasn't when I started writing this post. And I may not sound drunk, but you'd be surprised how long it's taking me to both formulate these words and type them correctly.
I have other exciting news, but I'm going to save it for tomorrow (or actually later on today, given that it's after midnight), both to create suspense and because I'm too tired to tell you now.
So yeah, today was good. And you all are fabulous for being so attentive to and supportive of my little grad school milestones.
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4 comments:
Mazel Tav! (however its spelled. SPIDER MAN TIME!!!!!)
congratulations :) next time you come up, bring your powerpoint presentation. i want to see it!
I, however, only want to see your power point presentation if it's as good as our "visual aids" from when we presented our senior papers. And that's a high standard! Congrats, nonetheless!!
Congratulations!
And don't downplay your accomplishments — rest assured that a less-prepared student with a less-prepeared thesis would likely have endured worse in defending. (And not all PhD defenses involve strife, either; it's really a matter of how well-polished everything is...)
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