One week with Line Engelsbrechtsen
Line Engelbrechtsen: Diary of the Week prior to my PhD Defense (5/11-9/11).
Monday: The last week before my PhD defense has finally begun. There are only five days to go until I have to defend my thesis, and I still feel that there is a lot to prepare before the defense on Friday. However, today was a big milestone in the preparation. I had a rehearsal of my defense at my workplace, the Human Genomics and Metagenomics in Metabolism program at the Novo Nordisk Foundation Center for Basic Metabolic Research. I had prepared a slideshow over the weekend, and now presented it to my colleagues, who timed the presentation and gave me feedback on format, slides and content. It was a big help. I got some great input on the slides, including details of what I needed to include and how I could improve the take-home messages.
Tuesday: Today, I worked on improving the slides by adding some more illustrative animations and trying to cut down the number of slides. I feel that the presentation is getting better and better. I also got some great input from one of the group leaders at my workplace. He had kindly offered his help in cutting down the number of slides in the presentation. He is a great presenter, so I knew he would be able to give me good feedback. We had a one-to-one session where we went through the take-home messages on each slide. Since he works in a field very different than mine, he was excellent at pinpointing which slides could be removed and how I could make the story even better. This was really helpful, and I now feel that I have a slideshow ready for the presentation.
Wednesday: I went through my papers today, reading them one by one in order to make sure that I was able to remember the details of each study. It is really difficult to remember it all, and since some of them were conducted years ago it is hard to remember why we chose to conduct the statistical models the way we did. Fortunately, I have some great colleagues to ask, and they were able to explain more to me about the statistical models.
Thursday: One more day until I have to defend my thesis. I am starting to feel the nerves coming on, but on the other hand I am also really looking forward to the day. I stayed in a meeting room for most of the day to rehearse the presentation over and over again. I wanted to make sure that I remembered all the details of each slide and was able to give the presentation in less than 45 minutes, which is the requirement set by the PhD school. I have gone through the slides so many times now that I am sure I could repeat them in my sleep. It feels comforting to know that I am ready to present my studies.
Friday: Finally, it is Friday, the day I have been waiting for since I started my thesis. I woke up excited, ready and looking forward to presenting the work I have been doing for the last four years to family, friends and colleagues. I went for a long walk in the morning to clear my mind and to walk off some of the nerves.
The defense was a great experience. The assessment committee was kind and enthusiastic, asking me very interesting and challenging questions. It helped me to reflect on the work that I have done. The atmosphere in the auditorium was positive, and I could feel the encouragement from the audience through their smiles. My daughter, aged 6, gave me the sweetest and most heartfelt critique after the defense: “You should have put more pictures in the book, otherwise nobody will read it.” She is probably right that not many will read it, but it still feels like a great accomplishment, and I am proud of the work I have done. Many of my colleagues had previously told me that the defense day would be a day of celebration, and I now see what they meant. It was truly a great day, and a day that I will remember.