Worry Wart

“You seem very calm, aren’t you worried?”

D. spoke these words to me in the hallway just a few minutes ago. D. is a very nice person, despite having a PhD and studying phytoplankton, who recently agreed to be the moderator of my dissertation defense.

Some readers may be unfamiliar with how people get PhDed, but it’s really very simple. Think of it as a fraternity initiation rite that lasts for six years; if you make it through all the tasks you get to join the club. The first task is to ‘Build the foundations of your knowledge with your own two hands’, aka, classes. Although grad classes technically have people who teach them, these people would almost always rather be doing research and can get quite snippy if you don’t already know the answers to the questions.

After all, didn’t you do the reading?

The task an initiate must next complete is the prospectus. After the classes have clearly delineated the boundaries of human knowledge, the student must gaze into the limitless expanse of human ignorance and pluck from it a question, and then come up with a plan to get the Darkness of Ignorance to retreat a few more steps. It must be feasible, but not so simplistic that you look like wuss.

So chose, but chose wisely.

Then comes the comprehensive exam. These take on many forms, depending on the particular brand of sadism favored by the faculty at your school, but they almost always involve standing in front of your ‘committee’, a group of PhDs who are specially selected to ‘aid’ you in your quest, and answering questions about anything they care to ask. It is not unheard of for candidates to faint afterwards. Physical encounters are usually frowned upon; psychological torment is so much more subtle and elegant after all. As an example, one of my committee members showed up to my exam bearing a Samoan war club. It was a beautifully carved blade of tropical hardwood guaranteed, if used correctly, to cure any head ache. It made a resonant thudding sound when he brought it crashing down on the table in front of him. It will not surprise the reader that a moderator is also required at the comprehensive exam.

In my case, his job was to make sure the club was used solely for psychological purposes.

Then you actually have to battle the Darkness of Ignorance. If you had a good plan, AND you’re lucky, AND you have an advisor who actually gives you time to work on your own stuff, AND your committee doesn’t decide it didn’t like your first question after, AND substantial parts of your research aren’t destroyed by a hurricane named Isabelle, then this part should only last four or five years.

Ask me why my first-born daughter’s name isn’t Isabelle. Go on, you know you’re dying to.

Next you have to write about it. You must chronicle your own epic story, and call it your dissertation. Make sure it’s well written, because it going to be read by so many people you couldn’t count them on two hands. No, between you, your advisor and half your committee, you’d only need one. But darn it, if you’re going to wax poetic about genetic variability among populations of parasitic isopods (think ticks that eat fish, unless you’re eating lunch in which case try not to), then you’d might as well make it good poetry. Never ask yourself why the exploits of other epic heroes were so fascinating that other people couldn’t help but write them down.

Of course your mom will read it, if by ‘it’ you mean the abstract.

If you think that should be enough you are, of course, wrong. You may have bravely walked into the unknown and lit a tiny candle that illuminated something that no other human had ever seen. You may have managed to produce six hundred pages of heroic couples describing the experience, but that won’t stop your committee from trying to blow your candle out and claim that it’s all a load of copepod fecal pellets.

No, the only thing preventing that is the fact that committee member number three happens to study copepod fecal pellets and thinks they are the greatest gift to humanity since gelatinous zooplankton.

That is why they call it a defense. It’s an all out intellectual battle between you and five octogenarians who have been in school since kindergarten. All that’s at stake is six years of your life. I’m not worried though, because I know I’m ready and I know that my dear moderator, D., will be there to make sure it’s a fair fight, and that’s all I need.

Of course, she doesn’t know about the war club, but that’s her worry, not mine.