Just to be clear though, I actually love my graduate program. I love my dissertation, and I love my teaching job. I never expected grad school to be anything other than really, really hard, and while I’ve been blindsided in a few cases, I can honestly say it’s been a character-building experience (cue Mr. Rogers theme song).

The examiners are sent copies of the phd and have so much time to read it. They then meet before the viva and decide the outcome- pass with no corrections; pass with minor corrections; pass with major corrections and fail. The external examiner is really the power here- in that they have the final say. Then you have a viva, which consists of your two examiners and a chair, who is usually Head of Dept (unless s/he is your advisor) and whose role is to keep things on track and to take notes. You can invite your advisors to sit in on the defence, but they aren’t allowed to say anything unless invited by the chair. Unless the examiners are really on the fence about passing you, they often- but not always- tell you that you have passed at the beginning of the viva. You spend the next couple of hours dicussing any corrections, potential areas for future research and publication- discussion at this point can affect what corrections you are asked to make (so if you defend something really well, you might not be asked to change it- although you may well be asked to justify it at greater length in the thesis).

You are then sent out while they decide on what corrections they will formally ask you to make (if any). You then go back in and are told the exact outcome (minor corrections/ major etc) and given a deadline for any changes and who you have to submit them to. If it’s minor, usually they just go to the internal; major changes go back to the external. The chair writes up the formal corrections and you get a typed report a few days later to keep you right.

I think the process of being examined by someone who is usually a stranger means that it is harder to make criticisms about you as a person- and restricts comments to the research. Plus a good advisor should try not to pick an asshole- but then we don’t all have good advisors and sometimes the expert in the field is not known to your advisor. However, I heartily recommend writing your PhD from a feminist perspective with liberal use of the word patriarchy- because at least then your examiner should share your political outlook- which I imagine mitigates against any misogynist comments!

The worst case scenarios are the ones Rad and Z report–potentially withholding a degree from someone who’s secured a job and is ready to rock’n'roll. But even for those who don’t have a job waiting for them, I can’t imagine the devastation of a hostile and/or unsuccessful defense.

(And, to CPP: No, not everyone in this thread went to BFU, but a number of my regular commenters are people who did! What can I say: it was a top American history program.)

I had no idea that you (John S.) had a defense–since I finished just a few years before you, I guess that’s another bullet I dodged. I have to say, knowing your committee members, that your defense sounds like about what I would have predicted.

My experience with defenses at Regional Comprehensive has all been positive whether I’m a supervisor or committee member. We have a position that adds to the above — there’s a defense chair who represents graduate studies so I’ve chaired defenses in Biology and Geology as well as in disciplines close to my own. The position of defense chair, who has to come from another program and cannot have any close relationship with student or supervisor, is meant to ensure that the defense follows proper procedure. As chair I have had to intervene on occasion, telling people that questions were inappropriate. Because the system is so well-entrenched and the chairs are organized through the dean of graduate studies, I doubt there’s much chance at our university to put shenanigans into the defense.

That said, a lot of rituals that accrete around academe are invidious. I shudder, every year, to watch the march of the freshman engineers, going through their ritualized hazing that involves all sorts of stupidity. They call it “orientation” but when you have people painted purple and parading through the U doing “the elephant walk” as the public face of orientation, that’s not acceptable. I would love to see that outlawed!

Horror story: I know someone who flew cross country for a defense, but before it could take place the committee announced they wanted more revisions. Tough crowd.