Defended

Wow. The effort of twenty-three or six or a few years of education came to a culmination on Friday and I am still reeling from all of it. Completion of my dissertation has felt so distant for so long that to have suddenly passed it by is a little disorienting! Mind you, it's a lovely disorientation, but I have been so focused on finishing school for so long that it is hard to believe there could be anything else out there to focus on. I'm excited to find out (again)! Like today after work ... how will I entertain myself without more dissertation to work on?!

For the actual defense I had two hours scheduled with my committee on Friday, Dec. 11th from 2pm to 4pm. It was in the new building, which I had never been in, but it was actually very nice on the interior. Our defenses aren't completely open to the public, but they are trying to require new students to attend one before they defend themselves. Luckily for me, being the afternoon of Friday before winter break, no students showed up, so no pressure to perform in front of strangers. Just professors.

I had been practicing my powerpoint for days, trying to shorten it, as my committee chair said she only wanted 20 minutes of presentation and the remaining hour and forty minutes for questions and defending. My powerpoint was 20 slides and probably closer to an hour, but I didn't know any way to eliminate slides and still have a coherent presentation, and it worked out for the best because it stimulated discussion and conversation throughout.

The committee meets once at the beginning of the two hours and again toward the end when they decide the outcome. The first time they only met for a couple of minutes, which Tania (my advisor) whispered was a good sign as she led me back to the room. I did my presentation well and despite wanting to answer questions slightly differently in retrospect, they did not ask me anything that totally stumped me, which was nice. When I went into the defense it had started raining and about midway through the sun burst out and was shining in the window at me and that's when I realized things were going very well.

I think we only met for about an hour...maybe an hour and twenty before they ran out of questions. That was a good feeling too -- like I had thought about all of their questions and answered them during the presentation. I had a whole good-luck goodie bag from my mom with Asian metal fish, a rubbing stone, lavender, etc. and some of my own good luck additions -- a bobble head turtle I brought to UC Santa Barbara for my interview. I also wore a silver pin with a heart on it that my mom gave me and that was the first gift my dad bought her.

At the end, they asked me to leave and after less than 10 minutes they invited me back in and congratulated me! They each told me nice things (that I wish I had done a better job of recording) including telling me that my study was groundbreaking, masterful, and elegantly conducted. One member said she really saw the work I had put into the paper since the proposal. Another member said that with all the proposals, defenses and qualifying exams he was working on this quarter that he was looking forward to reading mine most! It was particularly meaningful because he is a counseling process and outcome researcher and very reluctant to give compliments. And then my advisor stayed and reiterated how excited she was about my project, how it is just what the field needs, and how I have to publish it quickly! She asked what I was going to do first and I said I needed to update my facebook status! We reminisced of all the changes in the last six years and hugged each other a few times in the excitement.

After that the celebration continued at my friends ranch in Cuyama. All in all, a pretty amazing week and a pretty important day in the scheme of things for Drew! Thanks for all the support and love and contact -- it's been amazing!