A field guide to surviving a Thesis defense

Writing a thesis is a long, difficult road. Most of the time you feel like you're never going to say anything productive...and then you write it and you sit back and go 'huh, I think I said something cool." 

After doing all of the hard work, the defense happens. You sit in a room with a three person committee for 1-2 hours while they ask you alot of questions and decide your fate. 

While I can only share my own experience, I would like to give a few of the tips I learned during this process.

• You turn your thesis in two weeks before you defend: take the first week off. You've written a thesis, focus on your health and your other work.
• Week 2: re-read (skim through) the super important theoretical texts, write some notes.
• Week 2: write a list of possible Q such as "why did you use x term?" "what role did your positionality play?" Questions that you maybe didn't write a whoel paragraph on. 
• Week 2: print thesis, and tab pages where you have defined your terms, etc.
• Day before: have a friend text you: "I know you know it, you need to know you know it too."

At defense

• Bring all the notes and printed thesis with you. You won't need the notes, you'll need the thesis. 
• Get to campus an hour early, dressed like a fierce warrior-- whatever that means to you.
• Go to room 20 min early, drink water, pee, greet committee as they come. Breathe.
• Smile. Thank people for taking the time to do this.
• When people ask questions: be honest. Defend your choices, but not defensivly. Talk about why you wrote that or made that choice. Expand the context, you can't fit everything you know into your paper...use that to your advantage and wow them with more information. Truthfully say "I hadn't considered that."
• When a committee member offers a change suggestion, thank them for catching that and for their expertise.
• Take good notes of the suggestions, including your responses.
• Be yourself. I'm a bit goofy--  I also knew two of my committee members well-- I did not act differently around them. I used my normal voice and gestures and there was laughter in the room. I drank water when I needed to, etc. 

After defense

• Take the night/weekend off and have fun!!
• Do the easy revisions first
• Do the others (ha, duh)
• write and mail thank you notes to committee. 

PUBLISH!!!