so I defended!!
Nov. 23rd, 2018 01:56 am![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
alexr_rwxI've been meaning to write about this!
I had my doctoral defense earlier this month, on election day!
It was really good. It was on the Tuesday, so I showed up in Bloomington on Sunday evening, with the intention of scouting everything out and getting some administrivia handled on Monday.
My parents came! They stayed in the same hotel as me, which is built into the student union, conveniently also where my talk was.
But it went really well. So many people showed up; some people I know from Bloomington (including Prof. Paul Purdom!!), current computational linguistics students who'd never met me (but had maybe heard about me?)... we mostly filled the room, actually!
And the talk went pretty smoothly. It was fun, really. We got good questions!
Maybe one of the most beautiful things -- my mouth kept getting really dry, because I was up there talking for so long, and I had started with a bottle of water, but I ran out pretty quickly. And my mother noticed this, and she kept on handing me cups of water. That's like... what one would hope one's mom would do, during your doctoral defense. I was *so tired* after the talk.
Here are the slides, if you're curious.
That evening, Sandra hosted a party at her house, which was super nice of her <3 And my parents came with!
I was so glad they were there. Especially my dad, y'know -- considering how he very nearly died just a few months ago. All kinds of thankful that he's still with us.
The next day, I gave a talk for a machine learning seminar, and that was really nice -- that room pretty much filled up too. Kind of amazing, considering I was really not super prepared for that one; mostly it was just ad-libbed and answering questions as they came up. I think it went pretty well too, all things considered. The audience didn't know much about MT, and I'm more than happy to explain MT ideas to a receptive audience.
So like... all that's left now is a little administrivia, very very few edits, and formatting. And we're done.
I'll have a PhD for real at the end of the semester.
I had my doctoral defense earlier this month, on election day!
It was really good. It was on the Tuesday, so I showed up in Bloomington on Sunday evening, with the intention of scouting everything out and getting some administrivia handled on Monday.
My parents came! They stayed in the same hotel as me, which is built into the student union, conveniently also where my talk was.
But it went really well. So many people showed up; some people I know from Bloomington (including Prof. Paul Purdom!!), current computational linguistics students who'd never met me (but had maybe heard about me?)... we mostly filled the room, actually!
And the talk went pretty smoothly. It was fun, really. We got good questions!
Maybe one of the most beautiful things -- my mouth kept getting really dry, because I was up there talking for so long, and I had started with a bottle of water, but I ran out pretty quickly. And my mother noticed this, and she kept on handing me cups of water. That's like... what one would hope one's mom would do, during your doctoral defense. I was *so tired* after the talk.
Here are the slides, if you're curious.
That evening, Sandra hosted a party at her house, which was super nice of her <3 And my parents came with!
I was so glad they were there. Especially my dad, y'know -- considering how he very nearly died just a few months ago. All kinds of thankful that he's still with us.
The next day, I gave a talk for a machine learning seminar, and that was really nice -- that room pretty much filled up too. Kind of amazing, considering I was really not super prepared for that one; mostly it was just ad-libbed and answering questions as they came up. I think it went pretty well too, all things considered. The audience didn't know much about MT, and I'm more than happy to explain MT ideas to a receptive audience.
So like... all that's left now is a little administrivia, very very few edits, and formatting. And we're done.
I'll have a PhD for real at the end of the semester.
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Date: 2018-11-23 08:32 pm (UTC)no subject
Date: 2018-11-23 11:23 pm (UTC)no subject
Date: 2018-11-25 01:29 am (UTC)congrats dr. alex!!
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Date: 2018-11-25 02:41 am (UTC)Thanks, and likewise congrats! :D
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Date: 2018-11-26 04:39 pm (UTC)I get to see a friend defend next month, and I am noting the bit about the water so I can potentially serve a similar function!
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Date: 2018-11-27 08:39 pm (UTC)no subject
Date: 2018-11-27 09:07 pm (UTC)How to dress really depends on the person/department -- I'd ask your friend!
I wore my formalwear, which is "collared shirt and hiking pants and a hoodie" instead of my normal "black t-shirt and hiking pants and a hoodie", which is business casual.
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Date: 2018-12-01 03:34 am (UTC)no subject
Date: 2018-12-14 10:31 pm (UTC)This Bloomington you speak of, it sounds like a nice place. :)
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Date: 2018-12-16 08:22 am (UTC)Y'know, Bloomington has its moments! It was cool and rainy there, and I saw a bunch of familiar friendly faces. So that's great!