So oral exam at end of PhD. Good idea or just a tradition that doesn't make any sense any more? What are the good things about them? If we didn't do them, how else could we get those good things? #academia#academicchatter
@neuralreckoning it’s a good idea but the variability in examiners (and their expectations) mean that it's not exactly fair for every student.
In the UK (as you know) it’s a deep dive for the student and examiners, in other countries they are theatre with a large jury and simple questioning in public. So at least in the UK it has a purpose as an exam.
@steveroyle@neuralreckoning even in the UK, though, it's really really really hard not to pass a viva (I've heard of 1 person in the 10 years I've been here and this was third or fourth hand news, so it might have not have actually happened). My question is more about what is gained by writing a PhD thesis that only 4 people will ever read?
@nicolaromano@steveroyle this is a big question for me. Why does nobody read PhD theses? Should we change the way they're written to make them more valuable documents? Should we get rid of them on favour of something else? I'm not entirely convinced by replacing them by publications in the current climate where there can be multiple year long delays before a paper gets published.
@neuralreckoning@steveroyle I'm not advocating to replace thesis with publications, that would be problematic for a lot of reasons. I was purely talking about format. Given that the quality of the thesis is not really discriminant for getting a PhD, we might as well ask to do something that will be more useful for the student, but I'm sure that has downsides as well.
@neuralreckoning@nicolaromano@steveroyle I am not sure "NO one reads PhD thesis" is entirely true, at least myself actively look out and read chapters of PhD and MSc thesis on when it is subject I interested. They usually more useful than their published counterparts if those also exist often not
@kofanchen@neuralreckoning@nicolaromano good point. The folks in my lab know that to get the real experimental details, the thesis is a better bet than the paper! Also, I have a look at the ones I get alerts for on Google Scholar because they've cited our work.
@steveroyle@kofanchen@nicolaromano yeah I like reading them too. They often have much better literature review than a paper too, if you're getting into a new field. But it is true that they are much, much less read than papers.
@kofanchen@neuralreckoning@nicolaromano@steveroyle right, like really the '4 people only read PhD theses' isn't a fault of the thesis, but the dissemination media. do you know how you would find a PhD thesis to read? because i don't.
@neuralreckoning
I liked mine a lot, it was a definitive period I could put at the end of my PhD that was the ending point. I had a committee who were very supportive so I didnt get what I think is the usual hard grilling, which I dont know what purpose it serves - that should all come before the actual defense. If you let a student reach a defense without confidence they are prepared for it thats a fault in mentorship, not the student.
@neuralreckoning I've seen it be a good 'rite of passage' for the student, in the sense that it feels like a more fitting closure than just the moment you hand out the file.
You get the sense of trepidation and release, often followed by a celebratory dinner with your lab, that you don't get from doing the actual important parts (the years of research and months of writing)
@lana@neuralreckoning 👆This! And also pretty much the first time (possibly only, if people move on from academia) when you can gather some specialists to talk about topics that interest you and who also consider you an expert. So closure, recognition, exchange of ideas. (At least that’s what it is in France, I heard the UK one was more like an exam and is not public, that’s probably not as nice to experience)
Somewhat of a counter ... how many PhDs will graduate having done essentially shitty science? Not because they're bad scientists or even their labs are bad, but because there's a timeline and sometimes you just have to work with what you've got (let's be real, this happens right?).
In those cases its just theatre and AFAICT a rather sad and bitter one too as it exemplifies the facade of academia that some/many PhDs encounter.
My take from personal experience is that I found the emphasis on writing and oral skills condescending and wasteful.
It certainly makes sense for many science students AFAICT, but many others come to science with diverse/broad educational backgrounds and have no issues with their communication skills... the emphasis on communication can quickly become "don't worry about the science ... just write/speak well!" Always felt a bunch of confused purposes to me.
@maegul@elduvelle@lana maybe it's because my experience of examining them is mostly in engineering, but I haven't felt a strong emphasis on communication skills. On the other hand there's no doubt that a huge part of the PhD is writing up the thesis and the value of that is unclear to me.
Science that has not been communicated is science that has only been done in your head, and is no is to anyone, you might as well not bother with it. You could argue "why bother with a thesis, when the usual way we communicate is by papers, and they are different?" This is true, but I'm my opinion these are superior to papers - no pressure to present things in a good light, not skimming over the details etc.
Well sure, it’s a nice way to write up some science. But there’s all the science too right? The knowledge, skills, experience and ideas to ground a future scientist. I’ve certainly seen PhDs where it was known that most of the work will be the write up and that the science part was mostly a wash.
Forcing those who didn’t publish during the PhD to compensate with a detailed account that will easily be incomplete — are PI/lab/collab or other structural issues included? — is something.
Seems to me, like other things, the shift of the PhD from original work to student’s lab apprenticeship is another awkwardly handled shift in the practice of science.
The way in which it’s the first and grounding experience of a new scientist though strikes me as vital to taking issues with the integrity and utility of the system as they inform the practice and conception of science generally.
Its not about forcing those students do didn't publish during the PhD to compensate - the fuller account of work done is important even for those that did publish (those that publish during their PhD are a minority in my field in the UK). Articles these days are fundamentally insufficiently detailed. The thesis is a corrective to this.
I'm also not sure I see the conflict with "doing the science". You can't produce a good write up without having done good science (emphasising the good science over the successful science). Particularly not a write up that can withstand 4 hours of detailed questioning from 2 experts. They will soon sniff out the difference between a good scientist and a bad scientist communicating well.
In the end I'm not disagreeing with you. We we differ, IMO, is on whether what you describe is too idealistic too often such that in practice the expectation of what you describe crumbles down to the more cynical impression I describe.
@maegul
I would not deny the reward cycles in science has become publication and grant cycles but I would like to think (perhaps naively) science is a bit more than just that..calling PhD thesis as compensation seems harsh 🙏 @IanSudbery@neuralreckoning@elduvelle@lana
Well I think many PhD graduates would consider the whole process harsh and not in a good "learning experience" way. Depends on field, university, department and lab, obviously, but that is likely the elephant in the room for this discussion IMO.
In some(/many?) fields, publishing during the PhD is felt necessary or highly sought after, so writing a normal thesis, not a thesis by publication, probably also feels harsh in those fields no?
@elduvelle@lana I'm examining my first French PhD next month so it'll be interesting to see the difference. I've attended french ones before but it's not quite the same.
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