defending my PhD thesis tomorrow- just needed a place to vent a little bit of nervous energy.

That is all.

Good luck!

Subject of thesis?

The role of IgA antibodies on the immunosurveillance of the gut microbiota

Good luck!

Good luck. Wife and her sister are both PhDs. Sister is an immunologist at Mayo.

Best of luck!

Sounds fun!

Cliffnotes when you're done?  Published?

I'm going to need the "dummies" version...

Is this a germ thread? Good luck!

It has been defended

actually used that in my last slide :)

Congrats! My thesis was on advanced electrolytes for Lithium ion batteries. I had a slide where I talked shit about the economics of a prius.

My advisor stopped me and said "do you realize 3 of your 4 committee members drive a prius"

My defense was pretty easy honestly. By that point I was an expert on the topic and knew way more about it then anyone in the room.

So I'm assuming you passed? They let us know immediately after the defense, but it was generally understood that if you advisor was letting you defend you were gtg.

Yep passed!

TL;DR of my research: IgA antibodies in the gut are able to transport bacteria in order to present it to the immune system. This allows the immune system to become primed towards said bacteria. Losing this process results in a "weaker" immune response, and results in sepsis if the bacteria manage to breach the intestinal walls.

Pretty cool. I know next to nothing about biology/Physiology, but that sounds like an important finding. I hope you got a few papers out of it!

What are you plans after you graduate? What is you actual field of study?

So what is someone defending in a PhD or masters program? Is it you convincing an audience that your research is sound and academic? What happens if someone loses their defense?

@setlab

Yes, you are defending your research against comments/questions from your committee (4 people) that have to sign off on your dissertation/defense in order for you to get your degree.

A lot of times when people write their dissertations they are just reciting various papers they've already published. In my case, my dissertation was essentially 4 research papers I had published.

In that case, the dissertation is not so bad because the work has already gone through the peer review process. There is still always the chance that one of the committee members disagrees or finds a flaw in your research and they can not agree to sign your dissertation that you passed. In that case... well you just don't pass and don't get your degree.

It's pretty unlikely that someone would do that though. In most cases all of the committee members have read your dissertation and would have spoken privately with you if they had an issue. It would take a real dick to wait until your dissertation defense to first bring up issues.

Thst being said, I do know of two people that did not pass in our department and just left with their masters. I also know quite a few that "conditionally pass", meaning they had to go back a do a couple of things before the committee member would sign off on it (like replicate some data points to put error bars on a plot rather than just plotting individual test results).

Everyone in my group had a great experience and it was largely considered just another long ass presentation, albeit the most important one you will ever do.

Wow that would be a big hoop to jump through. Worst case scenario, does everyone who doesn't pass have multiple chances to fix their work and conditionaly pass?

The only two people I knew of in our department (chemical engineering) did not pass because they were not very involved with their advisor and their committee members. Basically, the advisor had no real clue what they were working on and just went along with the defense. The committee members were not at all impressed with the progress and basically said they should start over. Given they were already 6-8 years deep into their research, and had not been successful, they were encouraged to leave.

Plus there is the whole funding issue. In the sciences the PhD is usually free and you get paid a stipend. That money comes from research grants that fund so many graduate students to do the research. When that money runs out, it's time to defend or leave.

Most research grants are 3-4 year grants. The first year is usually paid for by the department, the next 3-4 years are paid for by the grant, and your ass better be gone by then or working on a new funded project. Like most things, it all comes down to money.

I got a government scholarship during my 2nd year that funded me for 3 years and then I owed 3 years of service to the gov. So after 3 years on the grant (5 years total) I had to defend regardless. If I didn't pass, I would have been royally fucked (at least $250k in debt). Since I did pass, I didn't have to pay back the loan and I was guaranteed a gov job continuing my research making 6 figs. It was a pretty sweet deal!

Congrats.
You now have a piled higher and deeper, AKA PhD.

Mine was a long time ago in EE.
The Math department forced someone onto my committee.
She was the only one that obgected to the Engineering treatment of 'no failure'
testing being assigned a failure to make the calculations work.

I left the room as they continued to discuss things.
Finally my sponsor came out and told me "Congratulations."

It was one of the most stressful 30 minutes of my life.
He latter told me what she was complaining about and that every
other person understood exactly what I had done as SOP on tests
that do not produce an actual failure.

Dividing by 'number of failures' does not work when failures = 0.

Great! Did they do the little trick after the defense where a committee member comes out to the hall where you are sweating and says, "Could you come join us for a minute, doctor?"

My committee chair came out, shook my hand and said, "congratulations doctor. well... almost*"
To which my brain went: jesus- conditional pass? Am I gonna have to rewrite huge chunks of the dissertation that noone was supposed to read?
Turns out he was just referring to the fact I hadn't officially submitted my dissertation to the school yet.