Dr. Me

I finally defended my doctoral dissertation last week and I am almost officially a PhD! I flew out to Austin with my mom on April 16, spent the weekend enjoying the town and visiting Fredericksburg and then I successfully defended my dissertation to my committee on Monday April 18! Here's a quick summary of how it all worked... (for those of you who got my email this will be very redundant!)

All doctoral defenses are public events, so anyone is welcome to attend (but who would want to?!?). The morning of my defense I met briefly with my advisor to make sure it would be ok that my mom came and sat in on it and she said, "Of course she can. There will be lots of people there." "What?" I thought? "Lots of people? Like who???" I had assumed it would just be my committee of 5 professors (minus the one who had to back out last minute because of an illness), me and my mom. My advisor then told me that they were encouraging graduate students and faculty from the department to attend my defense so that the students could learn about the process. That last minute information made me a little extra nervous! I had never been to a defense before and certainly wished I had. I did not know what to expect at all.

So, I went back to our apartment, put on a very smart looking suit (thanks to Zia for giving it to me) and some pointed-toed heels that mom described as "mean looking" so that I could at least LOOK professional. About ten or twelve people showed up to watch the defense (plus mom), so that was interesting. It actually probably helped because it balanced out the dynamic of the room somehow. There were fewer PhDs and more students and it made it feel less intense. Plus I was able to give my presentation like I was teaching a class since most people in the room hadn't read my paper and didn't know what I was talking about! After my brief presentation, I was asked number of questions (none of them "mean" or tricky, most of them being questions the professors didn't actually know the answer to). My committee also provided me with some comments, suggestions and gentle criticism. They then all suggested that I take two of the chapters from my paper and publish them as articles sooner than later. They also suggested I reorganize the paper by dropping one chapter and adding another (that I had mentioned as a possibility in my presentation) in order to make it a book. Then we all had to leave the room for a few minutes while my committee discussed my fate. They brought us all back in and my advisor said, "Let's all congratulate Dr. Burkhart for an excellent job!" Yay for me! And the dozen or so people I'd never met all clapped. :)


Yay for finally finishing such a major project! After two children, several moves and a few years off, I ultimately prevailed!