Thesis defense

ChrisVance

Tomorrow is my master's thesis defense. I've been working on my master's degree in applied linguistics for three years. I'm really nervous in spite of the fact that the defense has nothing to do with my grade. The grade is based totally on the thesis itself and my thesis director says I will pass. I hope so because he's really put me through the mill. I finished it in May, but I've had to make many changes to please the thesis director.

In spite of the fact I was in minstry school for many years, I'm not a good public speaker. I will be giving a 30 minute presentation and then the thesis committee has one hour to ask questions. What a mightmare.

Please send postive thoughts my way on 11:00 central time tomorrow.

Leolaia

Sounds exciting! I had my PhD defense (also in linguistics) over a year ago. I too am a pretty weak speaker, especially challenged by spur-of-the-moment questions and discussion, but I was so on-target and confident during my defense...unusually confident, since I often have a lack of confidence. I was just electrified and felt ready to answer anything, take on the world, it seemed. I surprised my committee members by even asking them questions, LOL. And I didn't do all that much to prepare for the defense, I just knew my material through and through, and I talked about my stuff with much enthusiasm. Quite odd, really. It just felt like the right moment, and I made that moment my own. I hope this encourages you, because I would've ordinarily been FREAKED by it.

rmt1

Any exdub that gets this far has all my admiration and positive envy. Good luck. Bona fortuna. (I used to say "God speed" when concluding the 5-min service meeting before heading out for the 15 minutes of service that preceded the coffee break.) God speed, if you truck with that, etc.

Carmel

Congrats! Know what you are going through. My defense was in zoology and I was blindsided by a professor who subbed for my major professor. She (the sub) was my embryology prof and loved to tie you in knots come finals time. She bombarded me with qestions about biochem which I hadn't paid attention to for two years. All I could do was crack jokes and be a wise arse! She loved it! She was expecting I would crack and get angry but when I made goofy jokes and played along she congratulated me..

Academics are a strange lot...

carmel

Jankyn

Good luck, though the thing to remember is that you know this material inside and out. That's what I discovered at both my thesis and dissertation defenses. The whole point of spending all that time studying and writing is to become an expert, if only in that one small area (mine's Chaucer's Book of the Duchess).

You'll do fine, but I'll send warm thoughts anyway.

Jankyn

Legolas

Good luck Chris!

I am sure you have done fine!

lonelysheep

How did it go?!

kid-A

Hey Chris,

I remember my PhD defense, I was really nervous the 2 weeks before and I totally overprepared! I was memorizing equations, formulas, pouring over my old undergrad notebooks and when I actually got to the defense, not a single question I had memorized was asked by any of the examiners! LOL. They really like to ask application questions rather than basic factual information (at least in my experience)

My supervisor gave me the best advice: Out of everybody in that room, you know your material and the background better then anybody else.

Finally, even though I was nervous going into it, as soon as I began my presentation, I just entered this "zen" like state and knew it was going to be great!!

Good luck!!

AlmostAtheist

For the less collegiate-experienced among us, what is a "thesis defense"?

Dave

Thesis defense

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