For whom the bell tolls
A PhD student in our institute is undergoing her viva right now – she’s been cloistered in the conference room with her Committee for several hours now.
There are neat rows of champagne flutes lined up in the Common Room, and bottles chilling on ice. But the whole building is on edge.
It’s always like this. We are waiting for word. Her mentor is palpably anxious. The postdocs work in silence, like me, probably remembering their own rites of passage. The younger students seem excited and wistful, wondering how it will feel when it is their turn.
When the student is discharged and has passed, the Head’s PA will walk through the corridors on all three floors, ringing the big brass bell. It’s a lovely tradition, and we are all subconsciously waiting to hear its tones break the expectant silence that has fallen over all of us.
And what happened?
That is a lovely tradition.
I never celebrated. Nobody cared. Nobody rang no bell for me
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That’s nice – we had to rely on word-of-mouth to know if someone was getting viva’d. But if you passed they put up fliers all over the building. If you didn’t… well, word-of-mouth.
@Bill: Sorry to hear that. It’s a big deal and they should celebrate in some way.
They had champagne etc at mine, but after four straight hours, I was glad to just go to the bathroom. It was also a bit weird that they invited my examiners to join the party… I was worried that I’ll say something stupid and they’d revoke my PhD!
Jenny, have you ever been to a Dutch PhD defence when you were there? Where the candidate is all robed up and has to bring two….I forgot what they’re called…like bridesmaids/groomsmen but for your PhD defence =) And everything is super official, but the questions are not even that hard, because when time is up it’s over by default.
I was kind of sad (and so were my parents) that I didn’t get that much attention at my boring behind-closed-doors Canadian defence (and the talk part of it was even public, but almost nobody came).
Yes, I actually sat as an Opponent on two “promoties”, and it was at Leiden University, which has a very, very old chamber for that sort of thing, and a man in velvet robes who rings bells. The attendants are called ‘paranymphen’, which makes me giggle every time. Actually the questions we asked the candidaten were pretty tough.
/me also giggles at ‘paranymphen’.
I also had to dress up for my defence. I remember turning up at St John’s, and as I got out of the taxi and swept along the path to the Lodge the gaggle of tourists as one turned away from their guide and crick crick.
I didn’t have any bridesmaids, though.