A flash-forward to the end
Sep. 17th, 2016 08:53 am![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
ossamentaTwo weeks in and I've already had a glimpse of my (potential) future: yesterday the woman I'm sharing the office with had her disputation. This is the final part of the long years towards a PhD. It's a public defense of your thesis, with where an "opponent" (usually an expert in your field from a different university) asks you questions about your thesis - about methodology decisions and your results - and you have to answer them. Hopefully it'll be an interesting discussion. The room also includes a grading "jury" (higher-ups from other departments) who also asks you questions and will be the ones who decide whether you could give satisfactorily answers and if you should be accepted as a doctor. Of course once you reach the disputation defence it's 99% certain the answer will be yes, but still...
It was a good disputation: relevant questions leading to a discussion, and quite short, only 1.5 hours (worst case scenario they go on for many hours). The room was packed - people sitting in the aisles - and I could feel the oxygen slowly slipping out. I hope I managed to yawn discreetly. Then we all headed off to the department for snacks and drinks while grading jury discussed for an hour (!). But finally they emerged and pronounced Lovisa a Doctor of Philosophy!
In the evening there was the traditional post-disputation dinner which I had been invited to. A three course meal in - again - a packed room (we were four people below the official limit), with lots of speeches, toasts and songs. My brain was running forward in time thinking about which people I would invite for my dinner, who would give speeches and what would they say. I had a really good time, but with plans for Saturday I decided to leave "early" before the trains became infrequent. (and my body still decided to wake up at 8am even though I could sleep in...)
It was a good disputation: relevant questions leading to a discussion, and quite short, only 1.5 hours (worst case scenario they go on for many hours). The room was packed - people sitting in the aisles - and I could feel the oxygen slowly slipping out. I hope I managed to yawn discreetly. Then we all headed off to the department for snacks and drinks while grading jury discussed for an hour (!). But finally they emerged and pronounced Lovisa a Doctor of Philosophy!
In the evening there was the traditional post-disputation dinner which I had been invited to. A three course meal in - again - a packed room (we were four people below the official limit), with lots of speeches, toasts and songs. My brain was running forward in time thinking about which people I would invite for my dinner, who would give speeches and what would they say. I had a really good time, but with plans for Saturday I decided to leave "early" before the trains became infrequent. (and my body still decided to wake up at 8am even though I could sleep in...)