4 ms·

Depending on the country, the PhD defense is more or less ceremonial. If you have made it to the defense, you can pretty much not fail anymore.

physicsguy 5y ago
That's really not the case here in the UK, I know several people who failed their vivas and had to make substantial changes to their thesis. It's not common, because there are intermediate level mini-theses and vivas, and people who do badly in those often don't finish at all, but it does happen.
- conjectures 5y ago
  Yes, in UK mine was terrifying. In all likelihood candidate would get destroyed trying that tactic.
- shatnersbassoon 5y ago
  My supervisor had a student who apparently just said "no" as her answer to each critique, 38 times. She got the level of fail which is "never ever come back" - which apparently does exist.
- nicioan 5y ago
  I second that statement. I know at least two people who failed their viva in the UK and ended up getting an MPhil instead of a PhD. In both cases the candidates were told by their advisor not to go with the defense but they decided to go for it anyway. I know several more that got “major corrections„ which meant a lot of extra work and another review six months later. edit: typo
Swenrekcah 5y ago
Nobody likes a public humiliation so perhaps the defense event is almost ceremonial but the real defense took place before that in order to get the event itself scheduled? So that even if people don't fail their defenses often, there might be many that didn't get theirs scheduled at all? This is just speculation on my part.
hagy 5y ago
When I defended my PhD in 2013 at Georgia Tech Chemistry, the first half was the public defense, including Q&A. The second half was closed-door, consisting of just the committee and the PhD student. This second half was known to be more combative and it was common for the committee to request additional work. It was very rare for any one to flat out fail, since the student’s advisor wouldn’t allow them to defend until they had sufficient novel research. In my program, many of us would strategize for the 30-60 minutes of the closed door grilling. We sought to give our committee members obvious things to criticize with the PhD student having prepared arguments to defend against these criticisms. E.g., I ashamedly included quite a few spelling and grammar errors in the first few pages of the summary section of the thesis (the only part anyone would actually read) and we spent at least 15 minutes on my horrible writing ability. In general, the main outcome of the closed door portion of the defense was requests for additional work. It was common for committee members to suggest additional things that could “improve” the thesis work. Not surprisingly, many of these suggestions involved applying a committee member's methods, even if not plausibly applicable, so that one would publish another paper citing the committee member’s work. Some students, including myself, would have a job lined up before the defense to timebox the amount of additional work that could be requested.
- blandvegetables 5y ago
  hahaha I had a PhD defence in 2018 in the UK. Criticisms included: "I don't trust your maths" "I don't feel this analysis is right, but I can't describe in what way" "you are clearly not very knowledgeable" and many other similar things. Asking me a question and then before I can open my mouth answering it yourself, and then insulting me for not answering it was the start of the viva defence and it set the tone for the rest. I was also heavily criticised for not having cited a paper that came out in-between submitting my thesis and the defence, despite this being literally impossible to have done so, and, despite having already had gotten a job in that time, was given limited time to do additional experiments, write whole new chapters, new code, do new experiments, etc. Ended up adding 90 pages of material to the thesis. In the end I had to quit the job I had just got, because It would have been impossible to not fail my PhD program and keep the job. Afterword's, in behind closed doors discussions it was revealed that one guy had pushed for almost all of the required extra work deliberately to try to make me fail, because I had done something he could not.

physicsguy 5y ago

That's really not the case here in the UK, I know several people who failed their vivas and had to make substantial changes to their thesis. It's not common, because there are intermediate level mini-theses and vivas, and people who do badly in those often don't finish at all, but it does happen.

conjectures 5y ago
Yes, in UK mine was terrifying. In all likelihood candidate would get destroyed trying that tactic.
shatnersbassoon 5y ago
My supervisor had a student who apparently just said "no" as her answer to each critique, 38 times. She got the level of fail which is "never ever come back" - which apparently does exist.
nicioan 5y ago
I second that statement. I know at least two people who failed their viva in the UK and ended up getting an MPhil instead of a PhD. In both cases the candidates were told by their advisor not to go with the defense but they decided to go for it anyway. I know several more that got “major corrections„ which meant a lot of extra work and another review six months later. edit: typo

Swenrekcah 5y ago

Nobody likes a public humiliation so perhaps the defense event is almost ceremonial but the real defense took place before that in order to get the event itself scheduled? So that even if people don't fail their defenses often, there might be many that didn't get theirs scheduled at all? This is just speculation on my part.

hagy 5y ago

When I defended my PhD in 2013 at Georgia Tech Chemistry, the first half was the public defense, including Q&A. The second half was closed-door, consisting of just the committee and the PhD student. This second half was known to be more combative and it was common for the committee to request additional work. It was very rare for any one to flat out fail, since the student’s advisor wouldn’t allow them to defend until they had sufficient novel research. In my program, many of us would strategize for the 30-60 minutes of the closed door grilling. We sought to give our committee members obvious things to criticize with the PhD student having prepared arguments to defend against these criticisms. E.g., I ashamedly included quite a few spelling and grammar errors in the first few pages of the summary section of the thesis (the only part anyone would actually read) and we spent at least 15 minutes on my horrible writing ability. In general, the main outcome of the closed door portion of the defense was requests for additional work. It was common for committee members to suggest additional things that could “improve” the thesis work. Not surprisingly, many of these suggestions involved applying a committee member's methods, even if not plausibly applicable, so that one would publish another paper citing the committee member’s work. Some students, including myself, would have a job lined up before the defense to timebox the amount of additional work that could be requested.

blandvegetables 5y ago
hahaha I had a PhD defence in 2018 in the UK. Criticisms included: "I don't trust your maths" "I don't feel this analysis is right, but I can't describe in what way" "you are clearly not very knowledgeable" and many other similar things. Asking me a question and then before I can open my mouth answering it yourself, and then insulting me for not answering it was the start of the viva defence and it set the tone for the rest. I was also heavily criticised for not having cited a paper that came out in-between submitting my thesis and the defence, despite this being literally impossible to have done so, and, despite having already had gotten a job in that time, was given limited time to do additional experiments, write whole new chapters, new code, do new experiments, etc. Ended up adding 90 pages of material to the thesis. In the end I had to quit the job I had just got, because It would have been impossible to not fail my PhD program and keep the job. Afterword's, in behind closed doors discussions it was revealed that one guy had pushed for almost all of the required extra work deliberately to try to make me fail, because I had done something he could not.