Oral Defense Evaluation: Fill & Download for Free

I have known hundreds or possibly thousands of people in physics who turned in their thesis. I can’t think of one that was declined over scientific merit.Theses were distributed to the reading committee beforehand and oftentimes there are revisions requested. But that’s not a big deal. I’ve known a few people who were delayed a semester to a year because their thesis work wasn’t good enough for a non-advisor committee member. This isn’t out-right rejection, but it is very frustrating since these students are often the longest languishing students, frequently in their 7th, 8th or even 10th year of a PhD program.The oral defense basically never fails these days. It is a charade that is either a celebration of the student or a charade to make the student feel terrible about themselves. But either way, I’ve never known of a person rejected.Now, I have known a few people to have their theses rejected and in fact, this was a major fear of myself — that is because universities have very specific guidelines for theses. This goes down to the margins, the title page, the paper, the binding, etc.The reactions to a rejection by the university for style problems is usually frustration, cynicism, humor, or even anger. It’s not a big deal, but it can be somewhat costly if you have to reprint a bound thesis, oftentimes costing a few hundred dollars.These days the LaTeX style packages that most physicists use is pretty well honed so that few people run into this problem. I had one of these, but it wasn’t officially sanctioned and was very janky. It ultimately ended up working, but I was very nervous as the person measuring the margins and evaluating the paper was looking through the thesis.

HAHAHA.It was surely a frustrating experience. I promise to exact revenge on those professors the next time they exam me!For the uninitiated, the PhD proposal defense is a halfway milestone towards the completion of one’s PhD. Kind of like the dissertation, but happens at the two and half year mark of your PhD in a USA university program. In addition, you need to brief the professors on what you intend to complete in the remaining years and the professors will evaluate how reasonable your goals are.Everything that could have gone wrong went wrong that day.My defense committee consists of five professors-Four Chinese professors and one Russian professor. I was thinking of getting tea instead of the traditional tribute of coffee since they are mostly Chinese. My professor warned me that most of them preferred coffee instead, so I ordered some superior blend from an out of town Taiwanese restaurant.The Russian professor could not show up in the end because he was attacked by a dog on that day. I wished he were there, he was known to challenge students and other professors openly. Also, my attempt at racial diversity in my defense committee failed as a result.I arranged with my best friend to assist me with makeup that morning to deliver the best presentation. She overslept on that day.So it began…Once the professors found out what my topic is, one of them immediately closed his eyes out of boredom…I actually tried to raise my voice during the presentation in hopes of waking him up. He was not consistently zoned out, he just struggled to stay awake throughout.His eyes burst open at the mentioning of this slide…Question #1‘Is this something someone else has done?’‘Yeah?’‘Please give reference if it is something someone else has done before’I was just too blanked out to give a response right away. (On hindsight, this suggestion did not make sense. I took reference from a paper of something that someone else has done before, but I am reproducing it after having understood the Science behind it. The plot was completely done by me. Nobody needs to give credit for something as simple as the Schrodinger equation right? What exactly sets the line for need of citation or referencing?)Question #2The same question from him again.However, this one I would have no idea if anyone has done it before. How do I dig out thousands of papers online just to address this? Anyone?My adviser suddenly stood up.‘I did one on trilayer before. His….hers….his…hers is bilayer.’Okay? That counts I guess. Also thanks for struggling to not misgender me.The rest of the questions came after my presentation was over.Question #3‘So you claimed that this equation works only in a weak electric field. What happens if you have a strong electric field?’‘You will reach saturation.’‘Of course that would happen, what I mean is if you have an excessively large electric field?’*Pause*, *pause*, *pause*…‘You would simply tear everything apart’ My last resort at an answer.My adviser interfered again.‘WRONG! The answer is that it simply cannot happen.’My brain: ‘??????????????????????????????????????????????????????????????????????’Question #4–7All by the same professor, and my adviser would often interfere with out of the world answers.Question #8Asked by the only professor not related to my field:‘I have no idea what is going on but I am going to ask this’‘Why do you ignore the Zeeman effect?’This is something I have read on Wikipedia before!Zeeman effect - WikipediaRecites this page proudly.My adviser makes epic entrance again!‘WRONG! …………………We simply ignored the Zeeman effect.’My brain: ‘??????????????????????????????????????????????????????????????????????’It has been five days since then, but my brain:‘??????????????????????????????????????????????????????????????????????’I hope this recount helps other newer PhD students prepare for their oral defense next time since I don’t see any other Quora questions related to this.

Forgive me for the long answer, but this question opens up a huge can of worms.There is research on both sides of this issue, but I can relate my personal experience:When I started teaching, I gave homework pretty much every day. I taught chemistry and physics, and these were upper level classes. That’s just what you did.At first, homework worked exactly how it was supposed to: Students did the work, I graded it, students who did poorly got targeted for extra help, the world kept turning.And then everything changed.Like most teachers, I had a grading policy that included a certain percentage allocated to homework. In other words, homework was perhaps 25% of the grade. Two interesting things started happening:Students just stopped doing homeworkStudents started cheating far more aggressively than they had in the past.The first problem was more widespread than you might think. I had whole classrooms of students who simply refused to do their homework. Their grades plummeted, but they didn’t seem to care. Failures soared, but they didn’t seem to care. I was baffled. More on this in a minute.The second problem was also more widespread than even I thought. I found out exactly how widespread it was in March of 2006. My second child was born, and I took several days off. I gave my AP Chemistry students daily homework to keep them on their toes while I was gone. When I returned, every assignment was identical - and many problems were identically wrong. What did it for me was an equation that everyone had solved for “L” rather than for “K”. I thought perhaps there was a typo, but no, the problem said “K”. What happened? ONE student had written “K” but her pen had died a bit making the K, so it looked like an “L”.Every other student in the classroom copied that assignment - 2 separate class periods, no less!The cheating was facilitated by the smart phone. When I called my kids out on their cheating, they fessed up to having photos of that homework assignment and spreading them around.I never assigned another standard homework assignment again.Starting the next year, I switched to an oral defense strategy. It works like this: You assign homework, just like before, and students turn it in, just like before. But it isn’t graded. In order for students to earn the points, you call them up one at a time and have them answer questions about the homework. “So, explain to me how you got your answer to #4…” That sort of thing. I had the “Two Um” rule. If you said “Um” twice, you had to sit down and wait for your next turn.Grades soared. I got instant feedback on which students knew their stuff and which didn’t. It was great!Until it wasn’t.Remember that first problem I mentioned? The students who simply refused to do any homework? That became a growing problem. I couldn’t figure out why so many students would be willing to fail outright. I begged them to just turn something in, and I got nothing. It got so bad that I got a lower evaluation as a result of too many students failing.I conducted a little research to try to figure out what was happening. The culprit really surprised me: summer school.Students were purposely failing classes so they could attend summer school. This might seem crazy, but many students owned up to what they were doing. One kid flat out told me “Mr. C., don’t get upset about it. I’m never going to do any of this work. I’m already signed up for summer school for next year.”So what is the allure of summer school?I’m not entirely sure, but here are my thoughts:It’s far easier to get a passing grade in summer school than in regular school.Most of the students involved already have very low GPAs, so getting into college is low on their list of priorities.Parents view summer school as inexpensive child care combined with additional education: Why take chemistry for 9 months when you can take it for 11 or 12?I’m not making this one up: Dating. Students are using summer school as an opportunity to see their boyfriends / girlfriends. Many students don’t have cars or licenses, so summer school gets them up close and personal with their special someone without the hassle of having a car.I’m not making this one up, either: Free WiFi. Truancy is a major problem in my school, but the ironic part is that the kids are in the school, just not in class. What are they doing? Instagram and Snapchat, mostly. Hiding in bathrooms, under stairwells, in the nooks and crannies of hallways, using the free WiFi. Most students don’t have data plans, or the plans are quite limited, so free WiFi is a big deal.So what do I do now? I’ve stopped giving homework altogether. It’s not a good option, but it reflects the reality of where my students are and what they are willing to do. All work is now classwork, and what doesn’t get finished is homework. But in all honesty, it’s a mess. Students learn far less, and they still fail in large numbers.So what’s the answer? The answer is that the question is flawed. Homework or no homework implies the idea that students are in some way motivated to pass a class. The minute that stops being true, as it often is in very low performing schools like mine, the whole paradigm has to get thrown out. This has taken me nearly 2 decades to accept - I had the hardest time wrapping my brain around the idea that failing out of high school was not only acceptable but desirable. But that’s my reality, and that’s how I’ve had to modify my teaching.The solution, to me, is to close the 5 loopholes listed above. Make summer school exceedingly undesirable, and grades would probably increase for some students. But others would simply fail. The easiest way to do that is to increase the cost significantly. It’s all fun and games until mom and dad are on the hook for thousands of dollars because Jr. didn’t turn in his or her homework.So why don’t we do it?Money.Schools earn a fair bit off of summer school, but it’s more than that. If we made summer school prohibitive, our failure rate would rise, and the state would take over the school. Administrators, teachers, para-pros - everyone would lose their jobs.So should you assign homework or shouldn’t you? It depends on your student body and your school’s proximity to intervention. If your students don’t pass at high rates and the state is licking its chops to take you over (because to do so will save them millions of dollars, by the way), then my advice is this: Find another way. I’ve seen great teachers terminated because their failure rates were too high…because they assigned homework. I’ve seen whole school districts dissolved and their employees thrown to the wind…because they didn’t find another way to elevate graduation rates.It’s insidious, and borderline unethical, but it’s the modern reality of public schools in low-performing areas.