First ever pipe bum event of a sort

[Desertlifter]

So ??? How did it go?

Just got home! Gotta love a 13 hour day. Defense went very well, no doubt in part due to the VaPer awesomeness. Took two hours of grilling though. Presented and took questions from General faculty and grad student body for the first hour, then behind closed doors with my commitee of three PhDs for the second hour as they tore apart every decision I've made in research for the last two years. Ended out getting off easy - just a few more hours in the lab and then three or four more weeks of writing, submission for publication, and I'm done!

[Desertlifter]

Just as an update.....after having nailed my oral board, had a lot of work to do cleaning up my thesis. Added 5 or 6 more pages and re-did some of my stats. Yay math.

End result: Maximum threshold for similarity check on dissertation/thesis online is 15%. My thesis is WAY under the max at 3%, not surprisingly since there is only one other researcher who has done the same work - and he is in Spain.

Three signatures and I get to add letters at the end of my name.

[Bruck]

Just got home! Gotta love a 13 hour day. Defense went very well, no doubt in part due to the VaPer awesomeness. Took two hours of grilling though. Presented and took questions from General faculty and grad student body for the first hour, then behind closed doors with my commitee of three PhDs for the second hour as they tore apart every decision I've made in research for the last two years. Ended out getting off easy - just a few more hours in the lab and then three or four more weeks of writing, submission for publication, and I'm done!

All this for a master's thesis? I've done two master theses and the most grilling I've gotten is having to clean up some of the math and grammar. Sounds more like a PhD dissertation! Anyway, congratulations!

[Desertlifter]

All this for a master's thesis? I've done two master theses and the most grilling I've gotten is having to clean up some of the math and grammar. Sounds more like a PhD dissertation! Anyway, congratulations!

Some university science departments still run like this. Many no longer even require a thesis, at least in other departments. My wife has two MAs and neither required oral boards or a thesis. Still undecided on a PhD. Wouldn't ne much worse!

And thanks!