I finally defended my joint PhD! 🐸
After 4 years, I finally finished my joint PhD between engineering and chemistry at universities in Asia and the UK last week. It still feels surreal. Time to celebrate... though my postdoc already started a few weeks back! 🙃
The defence itself went as well as one could hope for: no interruptions during my presentation, and no question left unanswered. Helped a lot that I had multiple side-projects relevant to my dissertation that I didn’t have the space for in the thesis itself. To anyone freaking out over preparations: Spend a good week practicing presenting your research, go through your thesis and ask yourself questions the examiners may ask, and if you know the examiners in advance, go study up on some of their recent research (in my case however I only knew their identities 10 minutes before the defence itself).
I know it’s the typical advice, but then you’re good to go! Don’t psyche yourself out and waste months of your life with prep: If you’ve already gotten to just before your defence/viva, you will surely not fail at the finish line. Thanks again to the community here for all their support over the past few years! 🐸