PhD thesis piñata

Today I served as the opponent at a PhD defence at the University of Borås in Sweden. The format of the day was similar to that of my last Nordic PhD examining experience, although slightly less formal.

My time with the examination team began with a delicious lunch at the Borås Textile Museum. Then we headed over to the lecture theatre for the defence itself. The chairman introduced me, then I gave a half hour presentation to an audience of the candidate's colleagues and family members during which I reviewed the content of the thesis under examination. After delivering the presentation I spent an hour grilling questioning the candidate, and then the audience members had a chance to make comments on the work and ask further questions.

After the defence I sat in a meeting with the examination team to decide the outcome of the candidate's performance. It was agreed that she met the requirements to be awarded a PhD, and this news was then relayed to all, accompanied with the popping of a number of corks and cries of "Skål!"

The celebration dinner was themed "Swedish Tex Mex". I was half expecting spiced pickled herring/gravadlax or similar, i.e. an addition to the traditional meal to give it a Swedish flavour. However, it was explained to me that the Swedish take on any "exotic" cuisine is not to add anything Swedish, but rather to take out ingredients to make it bland enough for the Swedish palate.

Towards the end of the meal the friends of the candidate presented her with this home-made PhD thesis piñata. She took considerable pleasure in bashing it open with a baseball bat.

I hope to write a full blog entry about the work that I examined today. I will let you know when it is available on http://hazelhall.org so that you can take a peek (if interested).

Exercise today: not much again. I just took a short walk to the station after the viva to see off the student's supervisor on her bus back to Gothenburg for the evening.