Defending my Dissertation

LOL! Me too. It was the most stressful thing I've done in education. After it was over and I learned I'd passed, I began thinking, "Now that wasn't so bad." For a while I thought it was a dream.

 

Wow, tried to see if I can read a bit on Google books, and I see it was published in 1939. Makes me even more interested in reading it.

 

I actually found my dissertation defense to be, perhaps, the most enjoyable part of the experience, but, by that time, I had been presenting (and answering questions) at conferences for 13 years, so it was a very similar experience. I would recommend that you use a PowerPoint presentation (it will keep you focused and on time and keep you from missing important topics--plus your professors are used to seeing them). Summarize your topic and research questions using as jargon-free terms as you can. Be prepared to justify why you looked at the variables that you did (and why you excluded others) and summarize your results, conclusions and implications. You should do just fine and, soon, we will all be calling you "DOCTOR".

 

I found mine to be very anti-climactic at the end. My defense was on a Friday afternoon, and I could tell some members were wanting to beat the traffic home (perhaps another useful tactic.) Five years of coursework, writing, and TAing ended on "Congrats, you're done. Have a nice life" shook hands, and they left.

 

Years ago when I worked at a University we had our masters program invite Ph.D Candidates to present to our "Reading" class. Kinda late now, but they'd get a copy of your abstract and dissertation (but never read it) then the candidate would present to our group and they'd grill the candidate.

If you can find some MPA students....do it

 

I know this is an old thread, but I'm really curious how it went. So.....how was your defense??