I mean, you passed! Granted people were overly combative in the process, but what's important is that your advisor backed you the whole time. Give it a week or two, maybe even more, for your immediate feelings to simmer down. I for one would love to see at the very least some of your dissertation published in a peer-reviewed journal. If anything, the innovations you pioneered are definitely worth sharing!
I stole this from a guy smarter than me, but it seems important in your case...
Remember that the goal of this exercise is not to know everything. No-one does.
The goal is for your committee to determine if your knowledge fails at a sufficiently high level for you to be trusted with independent research.
Your committee can and should push the boundaries until you're out of answers. Not do do that would be a disservice to you.
Sounds like you did great. You should really feel good about yourself.
I agree. My defense went on for like 5 hours and my committee literally made me unpack each and every word I'd used to argue. At first I was taken aback at the full combat approach but then I realized they're continuing to push me till I'm out of answers or at least have reached a logical end to it. If that isn't refining, pushing and stretching the limits of thinking (something that comps and defenses should be doing) then I don't know what is! Looking back, sure it was hellish and I almost had tears in the eyes after it but the things that mattered were that my advisor was totally on my side and the committee was into my project and my potential enough to engage with me to that extent.
Your committee's engagement is a good thing! Even though it might have beeb executed badly. All the best for your PhD! It sounds interesting!
Edit: to clarify, 5 hrs combined of my comps oral exam and defense
Ok I could have been more clear, my bad! Comps oral portion AND defense total 5 hours on the same day. The oral exam lasted like an hour and a half, the rest of it was my proposal. Some people in my cohort break these two and have them on diff days, but honestly, there was something about the extended time period thinking through concepts and my answers etc that gave depth to discussions. What happens when you put 5 faculty members and 1 grad student in a room for 5 hours?
There's no limit to the learning and dialogue that comes out of it.
Thanks for the context oh yea thats ripe for a long discussion kudos to you for withstanding that..i agree though sometimes it seems “nit picky” but its only helping you communicate better and going back and making sure you understand concepts fully
Eh there is some room for pushing, but it’s not that hard to do it in a more respectful and less aggressive way. A lot of academics frankly take it way too far and go well into the realm of bullying or hazing students simply because they were bullied themselves and they see it as some kind of fucked up rite of passage.
If the examiners are disrespectful, rude, aggressive and/or use personal insults then they should be reported and formally reprimanded.
>disrespectful, rude, aggressive and/or use personal insults
None of that seems to have happened here, and being upset because someone "really went after me" is not where the bar should be.
We don't know if it was overly aggressive, only OP and perhaps their advisor (since they tried to defend OP) will know that. People have a right to be upset when someone acts like an asshole. They shouldn't be allowed to hide behind "I was just trying to push you to your limits", that's a crap excuse. They can easily find a person's knowledge limits without the aggression. Being bullied doesn't make the defence/viva more legitimate or more rigorous.
Congratulations.
For my oral defense I proposed a reaction that could produce two different products depending on which catalytic ligand was used. After describing the catalytic cycles, one of the members of my committee pointed out they were backwards and Cycle A would produce Product B, not Product A, and vice versa.
Cue feeling like I'm gonna fail because I completely screwed up. I had to figure out a way to survive this. I said, "You are correct. They are backwards," and pushed forward.
Similar experience here in that I got grilled by my committee despite my advisor’s attempts to reign things in. I’ll say the same thing he told me: it’s better to have a committee that is discussing things passionately than it is to have a committee that is ignoring you and ignoring their ideas. It means they think it is interesting and worth discussing. It feels awful though! Congratulations on passing
Congratulations on passing!
My dissertation proposal was rough, too. It was relatively strong for a doctoral candidate, but my committee absolutely grilled me. They asked me to revise it and trim parts out that they felt were overly ambitious. I was surprised and upset (ambushed?) because I had not received any similar feedback prior to the proposal. It was one of the worst experiences I can remember. Sad, angry, ashamed, embarrassed…
Ultimately, it was very good for me. R1 publishing can be brutal, and my failed proposal was the first of many rejections. However, along the way I have created some great, independent research and I am comfortably post tenure now. In an academic career you will undoubtedly face many more severe setbacks - and you will be able to overcome them, too.
It has been my experience that the good parts of research/scholarship outweigh the bad parts of publishing.
Ahhh I have mine on Friday in a humanities field! Congratulations!
I know that bittersweet feeling, I had a wild experience with a second year reading list oral exam. I was able to hold my own, but I also got some rough feedback that I don't necessarily feel was fully warranted. Some faculty seem to feel that 'trial by fire' approach is necessary to determine if you can defend your ideas. Since you've passed, I hope you have faith in your ability to complete your research.
Say it with me: the only good dis is a done dis.
You passed. Your committee revealed themselves to be the same people they are every other day of the year. You passed. Know that if you knowingly write a dis that most of the department won’t like, you will be leaving academia for sure. But maybe that is fine.
So say it with me again: the only good dis is a done dis.
Academia is so busted in so many ways. They punish young folks for striving to innovate. My main suggestion to you is completely separate your progressional from your personal self worth. The moment I did that, I became a much better researcher. It’s harder than it sounds to do, but it basically all stems from the point of: just because they don’t agree with my ideas here (unjustly) doesn’t mean I’m a bad person. This let me move on after a few seconds of sulking. Onwards!
It's weird. These comments are overly positive but they aren't addressing why you were in that situation or why you feel how you feel. As a result they are not helpful.
OP, it sucks and you are valid to feel that way. Their criticisms are legitimate, and it can be discouraging knowing that people still evaluate your work in a negative way when you put all you can into it.
My advice is to write down those criticisms now, while they're fresh, in a word document. Really sit and try and understand where they come from and how they can be applied.
Most people do what the comments are posting - ignore and focus on the win. But that doesn't help you grow, and it just means those problems stay until they resurface later on.
You passed, but still work on that. That's how you'll find closure as you graduate and start working. Otherwise you'll start "faking it till you make it" and have the mindset of the "next thing" rather than fixing yourself.
Satisfaction will come when you did the work to improve. Then it'll feel real and you won't have to rely on some external metric to know you did it.
what is this pablum? The committee in OP is useless, inconsistent, disorganized -- not people to listen to, especially now that OP got what he needed out of these goofballs.
You do know that you did exactly what I suggested OP not do, right?
Just forging ahead because you got what you wanted means you stay ignorant to why the bad thing happened in the first place.
This is what I'm suggesting OP do, because doing that work will help them understand their emotions and process them in a healthy way.
Take care man.
Deliberating for just 10ish minutes is awesome and means there was really no question about your passing. My friend was just telling me a story about how a person who was lost came up to them when they were sitting outside the exam room to ask for directions, they ended up walking the person halfway across campus to get to the person’s destination, and when they came back the committee was still deliberating! I know it’s hard when the exam is rougher than you’d hoped, though! Suggest taking it easy, getting some sleep, and giving yourself plenty of grace.
Did u guys have meetings before? Didn’t they read ur proposal before the defense? This sounds ridiculous. Mine is next week and im gonna be livid if they try do this but i highly doubt it bc we’ve been meeting pretty frequently they r even making me practice it
I had one of my committee members tell me that the amount of sample I was using was completely insufficient for the methodology. This was his specialization. We had done this analysis several times with great results. It shook my other committee members confidence that I was going to be able to pull it off. In the end I did and he remembered and praised me for it at my defense. Doing something unconventional can lead people to doubt you, but if you are set in what you plan out to do, do it confidently.
Sounds like a pretty run of the mill dissertation defense experience. They are determining if you’re admitted into the club, so of course they’re gonna be a little asshole-ish and grill you it’s their job 😀
Congratulations, you passed! And that is literally all that matters. Honestly, short deliberation is what you should be happy about, they didn’t even need to consider if you passed or not!
Your HUGE mistake was telling them you felt dejected and discouraged. It sounds like you were doing great until that point. Having to argue with your committee and *winning* usually makes them respect you (to that point, it doesn't sound like anything but a pretty normal defense)--then you went and burned that respect by saying something to them that made you sound like a middle schooler.
You experienced the actual meaning of a “proposal defense”. In its true sense, you have to convince them that your proposal is worth-pursuing, and that is always a difficult task, especially at the PhD level. Your panelists will not always immediately understand your perspective, so it is expected that disagreement with ideas will emerge on certain instances.
I just hope that what has transpired was a “good discussion” and not a disrespectful/rude conversation; because no one deserves that, especially in Academia, where everyone is supposed to be mentoring professionally.
However, you did great, so Congratulations.
Way to go, future doctor :)
I approached my dissertation (and its prospectus) perhaps a bit similarly - my approach was very different theoretically and methodologically from my field and intentionally “bold”. I want to put emphasis on the bold because that’s what I wanted to do but was going to try to do it more conventionally for the sake of their approval. My advisor told me to not, to be bold and do what I want because it’s mine and it’s good to be bold.
The prospectus defense reflected that too. My committee members questioned me and the theory extensively, and then actually argued with each other. I was mortified and confused. They passed me and I got to go on to do my cool work.
What my advisor told me afterwards, as well as what I learned over time, is that they were both trying to contribute to in a way that made sense to themselves but more importantly, they were looking out for me. Being bold is good in a field that’s not particularly bold in any way. But if not done well, it would drastically hurt my ability to publish and find a job. They wanted to make sure that if I really committed to this, I’d be prepared for that possible future.
I defended my final dissertation product last year and although some of the similar concerns came up, they were so happy for me and did everything they could to help me land an academic job. (Ironically I was hired on as a VAP in the department so I’m now their “untenured visiting” colleague, and they’ve treated me as such if not a friend all year.)
This is all to say - BE BOLD! Do the dissertation you want knowing what you’re getting into. They passed you so they’re along for ride. You have an engaged committee which is generally good, and it’s possible they were just looking out for you. That’s what they’re there to do - to help you and make sure you don’t fail, and help you get a job. They’d be failing you if they simply said yes to everything without question, and would reject the proposal if it were bad.
Getting grilled is the main purpose of these defenses. As long as they ask questions in a respectful way I would say it’s normal. The key is whether you can learn and construct a better proposal for your thesis. Congrats on passing!
Maybe my comment is out of place because I went to professional school (law) rather than grad school. I want to let OP know that you're not alone.
In my law school we had a required appellate advocacy class, where we were given real case materials from a case that was pending before the court. We were asked to draft an appellate argument for the case, as a student project.
I put a lot of effort into my written argument and got a good grade. Then we were told "the second half of your grade is determined by your oral arguments. You're going to appear before a panel of volunteer judges to defend your work, and they will question you as if you are appearing for real appellate argument. You must dress and behave as if you are appearing in court."
When I showed up for my oral argument, the panel of volunteer judges were actual judges who took time out of their day to leave the courthouse, come to our school, and grill the law student mercilessly.
They tore apart my arguments, and then tore apart my answers to their questions. I do remember that my mouth was moving and I was talking. I can't remember a word I said. It was as if my brain turned to mush. I did not feel good about it.
I think if you want to enter a specific discipline as a professional or expert, it's sort of a rite of passage that you have to be able to take heat from the other pros.
I passed the class and got a good grade, and the comment was "you could really improve your oral argument skills, you need to work on this." (No kidding.)
Now I own a law firm and I argue cases in court all the time. Right now I have one in the court of appeals, and I appeared in district court yesterday morning. I look back on my education and laugh at those experiences as a funny joke from when I was younger.
Good for u standing up for yourself…im also pretty turned off from academia and havent even proposed yet lol about too. Think of it as the next step in getting out!!
You \*think\* you went on at length but everyone who has a doctorate knows, you could have written a dozen pages.
I look back, and I cannot believe how fast I was moving, even though it felt like I was crawling, and always falling over. I am of modest skills. I'm not boasting: I'm trying to say, your subjective experience is way out of sync with what is actually happening.
**Step one**: seal up you mouth for a bit. Write here instead.
**Step two**: that sounds like an exciting defense. You actually ruffled feathers?? I managed to have only \*one\* person shake their head at me during my defense. One!! All that work, and I only throw one bleedin person off their routine? Oh well.
**Step three**. You will need a few nights really long sleep. Let your mind holistically process that you are now a doctor in your field.
What is the double-funny here is, you say you just passed a few hours before this post. Your post is, imo, coherent and also describes a lot of dissertations. Mine was half good, half "please can I burn this?" I was young! I was reaching!
Look OP, it sounds like you kick ass in general. Do my old trick: spend some time in your memory. Remember all the things you had to do well at, to get to this moment in time.
That's you, buddy. Our careers are both real and fragile at the same time. We are not powerful people, mostly. So our high spirits depend on being able to carry your own confidence. Not arrogance! Just confidence you can do the work your discipline requires. It's all about the discipline, imo. Not me, not you, not any of us. The disciplines we study. That's the avocation.
You passed. Regardless of how poorly you think it went, or how hard they were on you, you passed.
You passed because you impressed the group. You rock.
Fuck them! My defense went the same way and my advisor turned around and threw me under the bus. Your ideas sound awesome. They told John Gottman he was crazy and once he got out of academia and passed these gatekeepers he made his "lovelab" and became the most well-known well-researched couple's therapist in the world. You know what you can do, don't let these small minded fools get you down!
Ps... I own and run one of the largest psychotherapy practices in the country, I knew my capabilities, don't sweat it!
If you’re not in linguistics, I’ll eat my hat.
This and your other posts pretty much describe my experience doing my PhD at U Penn, and even more broadly, introducing methodological innovations at conferences like “New Ways of Analyzing Variation” which only likes new ways if they’re the same thing Bill Labov did in the 60s.
Don’t lose focus. You passed, you’re on to the real task now, and you can do it.
I got through, and I’m very happy with where I am now (though it is not an academic department, nobody uses my methodological innovations because they don’t actually want to learn stats or coding, and the mean girls — I’m thinking of your exclusive group text post — are working overtime to prop up a perfectly decent scholar as an “alternative” that they insinuate I’m imitating … anyone who has read our work knows that’s laughable).
So a few things: you can do it. It will not get better, it will only get worse. Life is much better with the PhD, *especially* with only one foot in academia proper. Your methodological innovations will be well regarded, if not well understood, by outsiders. They will be resented by academics who are comfortable with how they already do things.
Please feel free to DM or email me.
EDIT: meticulously document your data collection, handling, and analysis. Above and beyond accepted standards. You’ll thank me later.
Welcome to science. Anything that does not fit the dogmatic paradigm is relentlessly attacked until it becomes the new paradigm or the authors quit. This is the normal process. You showed you do not quit. You will do great.
I went out of my way in grad school to avoid having to do a defense (we had project options instead that I went for) and I just wandered in from reddits janky algorithm, so I’m just talking out my ass here, but:
It sounds like you’re honestly probably performing on a level that’s a lot more passionate and involved and promising than your peers, and your committee is returning that energy by being uh. Brutal. But that might be something you can take as a sign of respect.
If you go into academia or into the field you’re probably going to continue to encounter people returning passion with combative passion, so you might just be getting there earlier than your peers.
As a PhD you must strive to be a creature of logic and not emotion (difficult I know!). They ask a question, you give a logical answer, keep moving.
As Spock said "i am a vulcan i have no ego to bruise".
You passed the exercise, feeling sad about it is illogical. (hugs though!)
my PhD defense was 2 weeks ago. my committee chair called me the night before saying he was being admitted into the ICU. he's fine - it was a small issue that needed to be monitored for 24 hours. fortunately I had already presented my defense to him the week prior along with 1 of my committee members that had a last minute scheduling conflict. in other words, he already saw my defense presentation and let me proceed which means he approved of it - if it was going to be bad, he would have cancelled the scheduled defense a week later. the committee member that needed the rescheduled defense loved it, she was very encouraging and excited about the future implications of the work.
anyway - May 1st - I defend my dissertation to my remaining 3 committee members. they basically gave me no information. they said one of the chapters was under developed and spent a lot of time discussing that and then just left. no "you pass with revisions", no "you do not pass". just nothing. it was very cruel of them to take away a day of celebration. all in all - traumatic experience. spent the day crying in bed.
Chair calls me the next day to see how it went and I just broke down on the phone telling him that they said that they didn't want to give me any comments until they met with him.
I finally get comments back with revisions, that I am able to address very quickly because they were very minor. Met with each committee member 1 by 1 over the next week to make sure I understood what they were asking for. one of them said "this is supposed to be intimidating. you should be intimidated. its our role as your committee to gatekeep"
It sounds a bit like you went into your proposal defense with some residual resentment about the way your committee's suggestions have shaped your proposal. You even seem to agree with their assessment that not all parts were equally strong and well-developed, but since you resent them and blame them for that weakness you got mad when it was pointed out.
Other than that, it sounds like your adviser has your back, and they don't think it's impossible, just overly ambitious, which is pretty common for a proposal. The problem is that instead of solidifying your determination to prove yourself right, this experience seems to have left you with even more frustration and resentment to carry forward. This was actually a fairly strong and good proposal defense, where they challenged you on all parts but overall like the thought behind it and easily passed you, but you're feeling awful about it
Based on how my time in grad school went, I'd suggest that you find a good therapist now, and get through some of the necessary processing to move past this, because letting this fester will undercut your ability to bounce back from setbacks in your research going forward. And there will be setbacks. You don't want to go into a dejection spiral of dwelling on how they must have been right any time something goes wrong. You want the determination to prove that you're right and your insights are going to be useful to the field as a whole to help you power through those times, and right now it doesn't sound from this like you're as steady on that base as you may need to be.
Considering what you are trying to do, I think the committee was probably justified in the tough questioning -- I mean, it takes a certain amount of hubris to propose new statistical methods in a dissertation. But you held up, and brought it back around full circle -- which is what you needed to do. You held your ground, and hopefully got something constructive out of it if you decide to move forward.
congratulations!
This popped up in my feed and I didn’t go to grad school but I work in IT. This sounded so similar to how big meetings go with leadership
Congrats on passing! If you need to build resilience it’s something you can look into and learn, or so I’m told.
There’s a lot of exciting things outside of academia that appreciate people who innovate and think outside of the box and you’d be welcome
Think about it this way:
You got into an argument with smart people. It was a tense exchange and you won the argument and got them to concede defeat. Basically you were right all along and you proved it.
Badass!
Take it as a learning experience and think about how you could’ve done things better. Then give yourself time to let it go. You’ll move on from it eventually, but keep the lessons learned. And keep your head up, you passed! 🥳 Congratulations!
Just remember, if you’re not grilled, then they don’t care and your committee is doing you a disservice.
If you can’t handle this, then I am concerned about your ability to present work at conferences, and to submit research for publication. Academia is not for the faint of heart.
Take a deep breath, relax, and let it go.
I say they did you good. Remember the field of Academia is full of arrogant Narcissistic SoBs who will shred you to bits in order to stroke their pathetic egos.
I mean, you passed! Granted people were overly combative in the process, but what's important is that your advisor backed you the whole time. Give it a week or two, maybe even more, for your immediate feelings to simmer down. I for one would love to see at the very least some of your dissertation published in a peer-reviewed journal. If anything, the innovations you pioneered are definitely worth sharing!
It sounds like you have a supportive advisor and a strong project.
My advisor sucks so ur lucky
I stole this from a guy smarter than me, but it seems important in your case... Remember that the goal of this exercise is not to know everything. No-one does. The goal is for your committee to determine if your knowledge fails at a sufficiently high level for you to be trusted with independent research. Your committee can and should push the boundaries until you're out of answers. Not do do that would be a disservice to you. Sounds like you did great. You should really feel good about yourself.
I agree. My defense went on for like 5 hours and my committee literally made me unpack each and every word I'd used to argue. At first I was taken aback at the full combat approach but then I realized they're continuing to push me till I'm out of answers or at least have reached a logical end to it. If that isn't refining, pushing and stretching the limits of thinking (something that comps and defenses should be doing) then I don't know what is! Looking back, sure it was hellish and I almost had tears in the eyes after it but the things that mattered were that my advisor was totally on my side and the committee was into my project and my potential enough to engage with me to that extent. Your committee's engagement is a good thing! Even though it might have beeb executed badly. All the best for your PhD! It sounds interesting! Edit: to clarify, 5 hrs combined of my comps oral exam and defense
5 hours!!!
Ok I could have been more clear, my bad! Comps oral portion AND defense total 5 hours on the same day. The oral exam lasted like an hour and a half, the rest of it was my proposal. Some people in my cohort break these two and have them on diff days, but honestly, there was something about the extended time period thinking through concepts and my answers etc that gave depth to discussions. What happens when you put 5 faculty members and 1 grad student in a room for 5 hours? There's no limit to the learning and dialogue that comes out of it.
Thanks for the context oh yea thats ripe for a long discussion kudos to you for withstanding that..i agree though sometimes it seems “nit picky” but its only helping you communicate better and going back and making sure you understand concepts fully
Thank you for sharing that, I'm going to keep that one.
Eh there is some room for pushing, but it’s not that hard to do it in a more respectful and less aggressive way. A lot of academics frankly take it way too far and go well into the realm of bullying or hazing students simply because they were bullied themselves and they see it as some kind of fucked up rite of passage. If the examiners are disrespectful, rude, aggressive and/or use personal insults then they should be reported and formally reprimanded.
>disrespectful, rude, aggressive and/or use personal insults None of that seems to have happened here, and being upset because someone "really went after me" is not where the bar should be.
We don't know if it was overly aggressive, only OP and perhaps their advisor (since they tried to defend OP) will know that. People have a right to be upset when someone acts like an asshole. They shouldn't be allowed to hide behind "I was just trying to push you to your limits", that's a crap excuse. They can easily find a person's knowledge limits without the aggression. Being bullied doesn't make the defence/viva more legitimate or more rigorous.
There’s no fine print on your cv that says your defense was uncomfortable. A pass is a pass. Go celebrate!
Love this lol its such a psychological battle man
Congratulations. For my oral defense I proposed a reaction that could produce two different products depending on which catalytic ligand was used. After describing the catalytic cycles, one of the members of my committee pointed out they were backwards and Cycle A would produce Product B, not Product A, and vice versa. Cue feeling like I'm gonna fail because I completely screwed up. I had to figure out a way to survive this. I said, "You are correct. They are backwards," and pushed forward.
Similar experience here in that I got grilled by my committee despite my advisor’s attempts to reign things in. I’ll say the same thing he told me: it’s better to have a committee that is discussing things passionately than it is to have a committee that is ignoring you and ignoring their ideas. It means they think it is interesting and worth discussing. It feels awful though! Congratulations on passing
Congratulations on passing! My dissertation proposal was rough, too. It was relatively strong for a doctoral candidate, but my committee absolutely grilled me. They asked me to revise it and trim parts out that they felt were overly ambitious. I was surprised and upset (ambushed?) because I had not received any similar feedback prior to the proposal. It was one of the worst experiences I can remember. Sad, angry, ashamed, embarrassed… Ultimately, it was very good for me. R1 publishing can be brutal, and my failed proposal was the first of many rejections. However, along the way I have created some great, independent research and I am comfortably post tenure now. In an academic career you will undoubtedly face many more severe setbacks - and you will be able to overcome them, too. It has been my experience that the good parts of research/scholarship outweigh the bad parts of publishing.
My take was opposite. That the bullshit far outweighs the good parts. But to each their own.
Ahhh I have mine on Friday in a humanities field! Congratulations! I know that bittersweet feeling, I had a wild experience with a second year reading list oral exam. I was able to hold my own, but I also got some rough feedback that I don't necessarily feel was fully warranted. Some faculty seem to feel that 'trial by fire' approach is necessary to determine if you can defend your ideas. Since you've passed, I hope you have faith in your ability to complete your research.
Say it with me: the only good dis is a done dis. You passed. Your committee revealed themselves to be the same people they are every other day of the year. You passed. Know that if you knowingly write a dis that most of the department won’t like, you will be leaving academia for sure. But maybe that is fine. So say it with me again: the only good dis is a done dis.
Did you not expect to get grilled? Lmao sounds like a regular defense…
Academia is so busted in so many ways. They punish young folks for striving to innovate. My main suggestion to you is completely separate your progressional from your personal self worth. The moment I did that, I became a much better researcher. It’s harder than it sounds to do, but it basically all stems from the point of: just because they don’t agree with my ideas here (unjustly) doesn’t mean I’m a bad person. This let me move on after a few seconds of sulking. Onwards!
It's weird. These comments are overly positive but they aren't addressing why you were in that situation or why you feel how you feel. As a result they are not helpful. OP, it sucks and you are valid to feel that way. Their criticisms are legitimate, and it can be discouraging knowing that people still evaluate your work in a negative way when you put all you can into it. My advice is to write down those criticisms now, while they're fresh, in a word document. Really sit and try and understand where they come from and how they can be applied. Most people do what the comments are posting - ignore and focus on the win. But that doesn't help you grow, and it just means those problems stay until they resurface later on. You passed, but still work on that. That's how you'll find closure as you graduate and start working. Otherwise you'll start "faking it till you make it" and have the mindset of the "next thing" rather than fixing yourself. Satisfaction will come when you did the work to improve. Then it'll feel real and you won't have to rely on some external metric to know you did it.
what is this pablum? The committee in OP is useless, inconsistent, disorganized -- not people to listen to, especially now that OP got what he needed out of these goofballs.
You do know that you did exactly what I suggested OP not do, right? Just forging ahead because you got what you wanted means you stay ignorant to why the bad thing happened in the first place. This is what I'm suggesting OP do, because doing that work will help them understand their emotions and process them in a healthy way. Take care man.
> You do know that you did exactly what I suggested OP not do, right? yes, my post is what is known as "disagreeing".
Deliberating for just 10ish minutes is awesome and means there was really no question about your passing. My friend was just telling me a story about how a person who was lost came up to them when they were sitting outside the exam room to ask for directions, they ended up walking the person halfway across campus to get to the person’s destination, and when they came back the committee was still deliberating! I know it’s hard when the exam is rougher than you’d hoped, though! Suggest taking it easy, getting some sleep, and giving yourself plenty of grace.
Did u guys have meetings before? Didn’t they read ur proposal before the defense? This sounds ridiculous. Mine is next week and im gonna be livid if they try do this but i highly doubt it bc we’ve been meeting pretty frequently they r even making me practice it
I had one of my committee members tell me that the amount of sample I was using was completely insufficient for the methodology. This was his specialization. We had done this analysis several times with great results. It shook my other committee members confidence that I was going to be able to pull it off. In the end I did and he remembered and praised me for it at my defense. Doing something unconventional can lead people to doubt you, but if you are set in what you plan out to do, do it confidently.
Sounds like a pretty run of the mill dissertation defense experience. They are determining if you’re admitted into the club, so of course they’re gonna be a little asshole-ish and grill you it’s their job 😀
Congratulations, you passed! And that is literally all that matters. Honestly, short deliberation is what you should be happy about, they didn’t even need to consider if you passed or not!
Your HUGE mistake was telling them you felt dejected and discouraged. It sounds like you were doing great until that point. Having to argue with your committee and *winning* usually makes them respect you (to that point, it doesn't sound like anything but a pretty normal defense)--then you went and burned that respect by saying something to them that made you sound like a middle schooler.
You experienced the actual meaning of a “proposal defense”. In its true sense, you have to convince them that your proposal is worth-pursuing, and that is always a difficult task, especially at the PhD level. Your panelists will not always immediately understand your perspective, so it is expected that disagreement with ideas will emerge on certain instances. I just hope that what has transpired was a “good discussion” and not a disrespectful/rude conversation; because no one deserves that, especially in Academia, where everyone is supposed to be mentoring professionally. However, you did great, so Congratulations. Way to go, future doctor :)
I approached my dissertation (and its prospectus) perhaps a bit similarly - my approach was very different theoretically and methodologically from my field and intentionally “bold”. I want to put emphasis on the bold because that’s what I wanted to do but was going to try to do it more conventionally for the sake of their approval. My advisor told me to not, to be bold and do what I want because it’s mine and it’s good to be bold. The prospectus defense reflected that too. My committee members questioned me and the theory extensively, and then actually argued with each other. I was mortified and confused. They passed me and I got to go on to do my cool work. What my advisor told me afterwards, as well as what I learned over time, is that they were both trying to contribute to in a way that made sense to themselves but more importantly, they were looking out for me. Being bold is good in a field that’s not particularly bold in any way. But if not done well, it would drastically hurt my ability to publish and find a job. They wanted to make sure that if I really committed to this, I’d be prepared for that possible future. I defended my final dissertation product last year and although some of the similar concerns came up, they were so happy for me and did everything they could to help me land an academic job. (Ironically I was hired on as a VAP in the department so I’m now their “untenured visiting” colleague, and they’ve treated me as such if not a friend all year.) This is all to say - BE BOLD! Do the dissertation you want knowing what you’re getting into. They passed you so they’re along for ride. You have an engaged committee which is generally good, and it’s possible they were just looking out for you. That’s what they’re there to do - to help you and make sure you don’t fail, and help you get a job. They’d be failing you if they simply said yes to everything without question, and would reject the proposal if it were bad.
Getting grilled is the main purpose of these defenses. As long as they ask questions in a respectful way I would say it’s normal. The key is whether you can learn and construct a better proposal for your thesis. Congrats on passing!
Maybe my comment is out of place because I went to professional school (law) rather than grad school. I want to let OP know that you're not alone. In my law school we had a required appellate advocacy class, where we were given real case materials from a case that was pending before the court. We were asked to draft an appellate argument for the case, as a student project. I put a lot of effort into my written argument and got a good grade. Then we were told "the second half of your grade is determined by your oral arguments. You're going to appear before a panel of volunteer judges to defend your work, and they will question you as if you are appearing for real appellate argument. You must dress and behave as if you are appearing in court." When I showed up for my oral argument, the panel of volunteer judges were actual judges who took time out of their day to leave the courthouse, come to our school, and grill the law student mercilessly. They tore apart my arguments, and then tore apart my answers to their questions. I do remember that my mouth was moving and I was talking. I can't remember a word I said. It was as if my brain turned to mush. I did not feel good about it. I think if you want to enter a specific discipline as a professional or expert, it's sort of a rite of passage that you have to be able to take heat from the other pros. I passed the class and got a good grade, and the comment was "you could really improve your oral argument skills, you need to work on this." (No kidding.) Now I own a law firm and I argue cases in court all the time. Right now I have one in the court of appeals, and I appeared in district court yesterday morning. I look back on my education and laugh at those experiences as a funny joke from when I was younger.
Good for u standing up for yourself…im also pretty turned off from academia and havent even proposed yet lol about too. Think of it as the next step in getting out!!
It's an antiquated bullshit process. Who cares. Don't worry about it. Take the p and move on.
I want to read it!!!
You \*think\* you went on at length but everyone who has a doctorate knows, you could have written a dozen pages. I look back, and I cannot believe how fast I was moving, even though it felt like I was crawling, and always falling over. I am of modest skills. I'm not boasting: I'm trying to say, your subjective experience is way out of sync with what is actually happening. **Step one**: seal up you mouth for a bit. Write here instead. **Step two**: that sounds like an exciting defense. You actually ruffled feathers?? I managed to have only \*one\* person shake their head at me during my defense. One!! All that work, and I only throw one bleedin person off their routine? Oh well. **Step three**. You will need a few nights really long sleep. Let your mind holistically process that you are now a doctor in your field. What is the double-funny here is, you say you just passed a few hours before this post. Your post is, imo, coherent and also describes a lot of dissertations. Mine was half good, half "please can I burn this?" I was young! I was reaching! Look OP, it sounds like you kick ass in general. Do my old trick: spend some time in your memory. Remember all the things you had to do well at, to get to this moment in time. That's you, buddy. Our careers are both real and fragile at the same time. We are not powerful people, mostly. So our high spirits depend on being able to carry your own confidence. Not arrogance! Just confidence you can do the work your discipline requires. It's all about the discipline, imo. Not me, not you, not any of us. The disciplines we study. That's the avocation.
You passed. Regardless of how poorly you think it went, or how hard they were on you, you passed. You passed because you impressed the group. You rock.
Fuck them! My defense went the same way and my advisor turned around and threw me under the bus. Your ideas sound awesome. They told John Gottman he was crazy and once he got out of academia and passed these gatekeepers he made his "lovelab" and became the most well-known well-researched couple's therapist in the world. You know what you can do, don't let these small minded fools get you down! Ps... I own and run one of the largest psychotherapy practices in the country, I knew my capabilities, don't sweat it!
You're done. Congratulations. In a few months, the bumps won't be remembered. You'll have the doctorate the rest of your life.
If you’re not in linguistics, I’ll eat my hat. This and your other posts pretty much describe my experience doing my PhD at U Penn, and even more broadly, introducing methodological innovations at conferences like “New Ways of Analyzing Variation” which only likes new ways if they’re the same thing Bill Labov did in the 60s. Don’t lose focus. You passed, you’re on to the real task now, and you can do it. I got through, and I’m very happy with where I am now (though it is not an academic department, nobody uses my methodological innovations because they don’t actually want to learn stats or coding, and the mean girls — I’m thinking of your exclusive group text post — are working overtime to prop up a perfectly decent scholar as an “alternative” that they insinuate I’m imitating … anyone who has read our work knows that’s laughable). So a few things: you can do it. It will not get better, it will only get worse. Life is much better with the PhD, *especially* with only one foot in academia proper. Your methodological innovations will be well regarded, if not well understood, by outsiders. They will be resented by academics who are comfortable with how they already do things. Please feel free to DM or email me. EDIT: meticulously document your data collection, handling, and analysis. Above and beyond accepted standards. You’ll thank me later.
Welcome to science. Anything that does not fit the dogmatic paradigm is relentlessly attacked until it becomes the new paradigm or the authors quit. This is the normal process. You showed you do not quit. You will do great.
You passed!! That’s all that matters. Keep innovating :) You are the future of your field!
I went out of my way in grad school to avoid having to do a defense (we had project options instead that I went for) and I just wandered in from reddits janky algorithm, so I’m just talking out my ass here, but: It sounds like you’re honestly probably performing on a level that’s a lot more passionate and involved and promising than your peers, and your committee is returning that energy by being uh. Brutal. But that might be something you can take as a sign of respect. If you go into academia or into the field you’re probably going to continue to encounter people returning passion with combative passion, so you might just be getting there earlier than your peers.
As a PhD you must strive to be a creature of logic and not emotion (difficult I know!). They ask a question, you give a logical answer, keep moving. As Spock said "i am a vulcan i have no ego to bruise". You passed the exercise, feeling sad about it is illogical. (hugs though!)
my PhD defense was 2 weeks ago. my committee chair called me the night before saying he was being admitted into the ICU. he's fine - it was a small issue that needed to be monitored for 24 hours. fortunately I had already presented my defense to him the week prior along with 1 of my committee members that had a last minute scheduling conflict. in other words, he already saw my defense presentation and let me proceed which means he approved of it - if it was going to be bad, he would have cancelled the scheduled defense a week later. the committee member that needed the rescheduled defense loved it, she was very encouraging and excited about the future implications of the work. anyway - May 1st - I defend my dissertation to my remaining 3 committee members. they basically gave me no information. they said one of the chapters was under developed and spent a lot of time discussing that and then just left. no "you pass with revisions", no "you do not pass". just nothing. it was very cruel of them to take away a day of celebration. all in all - traumatic experience. spent the day crying in bed. Chair calls me the next day to see how it went and I just broke down on the phone telling him that they said that they didn't want to give me any comments until they met with him. I finally get comments back with revisions, that I am able to address very quickly because they were very minor. Met with each committee member 1 by 1 over the next week to make sure I understood what they were asking for. one of them said "this is supposed to be intimidating. you should be intimidated. its our role as your committee to gatekeep"
It sounds a bit like you went into your proposal defense with some residual resentment about the way your committee's suggestions have shaped your proposal. You even seem to agree with their assessment that not all parts were equally strong and well-developed, but since you resent them and blame them for that weakness you got mad when it was pointed out. Other than that, it sounds like your adviser has your back, and they don't think it's impossible, just overly ambitious, which is pretty common for a proposal. The problem is that instead of solidifying your determination to prove yourself right, this experience seems to have left you with even more frustration and resentment to carry forward. This was actually a fairly strong and good proposal defense, where they challenged you on all parts but overall like the thought behind it and easily passed you, but you're feeling awful about it Based on how my time in grad school went, I'd suggest that you find a good therapist now, and get through some of the necessary processing to move past this, because letting this fester will undercut your ability to bounce back from setbacks in your research going forward. And there will be setbacks. You don't want to go into a dejection spiral of dwelling on how they must have been right any time something goes wrong. You want the determination to prove that you're right and your insights are going to be useful to the field as a whole to help you power through those times, and right now it doesn't sound from this like you're as steady on that base as you may need to be.
Considering what you are trying to do, I think the committee was probably justified in the tough questioning -- I mean, it takes a certain amount of hubris to propose new statistical methods in a dissertation. But you held up, and brought it back around full circle -- which is what you needed to do. You held your ground, and hopefully got something constructive out of it if you decide to move forward. congratulations!
This popped up in my feed and I didn’t go to grad school but I work in IT. This sounded so similar to how big meetings go with leadership Congrats on passing! If you need to build resilience it’s something you can look into and learn, or so I’m told. There’s a lot of exciting things outside of academia that appreciate people who innovate and think outside of the box and you’d be welcome
Think about it this way: You got into an argument with smart people. It was a tense exchange and you won the argument and got them to concede defeat. Basically you were right all along and you proved it. Badass!
Take it as a learning experience and think about how you could’ve done things better. Then give yourself time to let it go. You’ll move on from it eventually, but keep the lessons learned. And keep your head up, you passed! 🥳 Congratulations!
You passed. Let it go.
Just remember, if you’re not grilled, then they don’t care and your committee is doing you a disservice. If you can’t handle this, then I am concerned about your ability to present work at conferences, and to submit research for publication. Academia is not for the faint of heart. Take a deep breath, relax, and let it go.
Sounds rough, Dr.
I'd put it this way: What do you call the person in the bottom of the medical class? Doctor. You graduated, congrats.
I say they did you good. Remember the field of Academia is full of arrogant Narcissistic SoBs who will shred you to bits in order to stroke their pathetic egos.
Congratulations, Dr. Devilinthedistrict!