Graduate Defense

Well I'm officially a master student!

Yesterday was the day that I defended my thesis in front of a committee of four for two hours.  My committee consisted of the Dean of Pharmacy, VP of Student Affairs, a quantitative professor, and my thesis advisor.  However, at 12:30 my advisor received an email from the VP of Student Affairs saying that he would not be there.  Man, o'live, my advisor was not pleased and I had no idea and learned about this at my meeting.  Honestly, I was a little crushed that this guy that had the nerve to cancel on my defense date and not even notify me!  No apology, nothing.  It was not my fault because I had scheduled this meeting back in October and it on his calendar for a month.  Not impressed and not the way I wanted the meeting to start.

But the meeting had to go on.  I talked about my thesis for about thirty minutes explaining how I conducted my research and what I discovered.  Then the next thirty minutes were defending my decisions and observations on my thesis.  This wasn't difficult because I lived and breathed it for the past two years.

Finally I was onto the last hour of my meeting, which meant anything I had studied in the past two years was fair game to be questioned.  My express sums up my feelings about reading everything I wrote in the past two years… EVERY paper and note.  I'm fully refreshed on the IRAC of Media Law and how to resolve conflicts - hint don't start it people.

The very first question was - "explain your thesis in a couple sentences using the words epistemology, axiological view, and ontology."  I looked at the quantitative professor and thought - seriously.  I managed to stumble through that question.  The next several were about statistics and describing if I conducted my research in a quantitative way, how it would be conducted.  Boom, the t-test and a positivistic viewpoints were my go to for this question!  I was praying they would move onto another subject because there were only so many statistic terms I remembered.

The next portion was about theories especially social exchange theory.  This studies the pros and cons of relationships and when a person should exit or enter one.  Of course, I didn't think before I spoke and I used an example of hanging out with a drug dealer.  Here is how it went…

If I did drugs there would be many pros to hanging out with a drug dealer.  I would have an endless supply of drugs.  However, my image would go down because it was a drug dealer.  I would have to weigh these pros and cons to see if I should continue this relationship.


Needless to say I had a lot of puzzled looks, so of course I clarified that I did not do drugs, nor have I ever.  Wow, I was winning at this point.  At the end they ask if I would leave the room to discuss if I passed or not.  Naturally I had my legs crossed this entire time and forgot that I had lost all feeling to one of them.  I soon discovered this because I stood up quickly and then face planted quickly.  That's right, I fell down.  I grabbed the door knob and pulled myself through the door into the hall.

Was there any question that I would fail?  I spoke brilliantly about drugs, looked like a new fawn deer walking out, and brought lefse - who would think I was a master student?!

So there it is folks, I passed.  Thank you so much to Evan, my family, friends, and colleagues for always pushing me and believing in me.  And above all thank you for never getting upset with me when I needed to study, write, or attend an athletic event.  Grad school has truly been a life altering experience.