“Well, I figure being a university professor is a pretty good con - you get paid to sit around and spout nonsense and can’t get fired no matter how little actual useful work you do. But to get in on the racket, you have to go through this stupid ritual first. So this project was necessary even though nothing of value is being said in this room.”
I went to grad school as a part-time master’s student in environmental engineering. As a part-timer, my original intention was to skip the thesis, and take the non-thesis option (which required an extra course and a “special project”).
The topic of my special project was dependent on my adviser’s line of research, and the scope kept growing. I had friends and acquaintances in the department stop by my lab to see my experimental setup, and invariably people couldn’t believe I was doing all that work for just a special project course. Finally someone made that comment within earshot of my adviser, and he said, “Yeah, you should switch to the thesis option.” :smack:
He was really pushed the issue after that point. He said that writing and defending a thesis wouldn’t be much more work than writing up the special project; that my M.S. would be more respected if I defended a thesis; that job interviewers would ask what my thesis topic was (and that replying that I did a “special project” instead of a thesis would look cheesy); that it would help if I ever went into a Ph.D. program, etc., etc.
I looked into switching at the registrar’s office, and found that the minimum number of credit hours for a thesis was six, and I was only signed up for three credit hours (for the special project). I was reluctant to pay for three more credit hours that I didn’t even need to graduate. I told my adviser this, thinking that it would end the discussion. He then offered to pay for the three credit hours out of his grant money!
So I did it. Even though I was already finishing my experimental runs, I quickly threw together a thesis proposal and got a thesis committee together. I spent the next three months writing my thesis, and defended shortly thereafter. I got a “passed with NO corrections required,” which was unheard of, according to my committee. 
I did get a lot out of the experience, and I’m very glad I did the thesis. It was a hell of lot more work than simply writing up a special project, though.
In Spain it’s a “proyecto” if you are actually supposed to do something other than research literature and write your own conclussions. It’s a “tesis” if it’s either librarywork or at the doctorado level.
Oh, and as for my actual defense, it was a pubic defense. My wife made some pastries and coffee and set up up a whole table with a tablecloth, napkins, paper plates, etc. for the committee members and anyone else who attended.
The three committee members and about 8-10 grad students from the department attended. (My wife did not attend. She was too nervous, so she waited outside.)
After my presentation (about 30 minutes), I was grilled pretty extensively for about an hour. As others have previously noted, I knew more about the topic of my thesis than anybody in the room, so I handled all of the questions pretty well, I thought. (Though one committee member did suggest another novel use of my treatment method that I hadn’t thought of. However, it was clear that his idea had merit, and I said as much.)
After the questioning ended, I and the public were asked to leave the room so that the committee could go into executive session and vote on whether I had passed or not.
I was called back in about 10-15 minutes later with the good news. They’d polished off most of the pastries by then as well. 
After picking a good advisor, the second skill to learn as a graduate student is how to bribe your examiners with tasty treats.
Homemade is a must, graduate students must be seen to be both hard-working and frugal. Find out in advance if any of your examiners has dietary restrictions. Double plus bonus points if you make separate items to accomadate separate restrictions - and label them with the examiners’ names. Regional specialties are always appreciated (i.e. blueberries if you’re from Maine, samosas if you’re from India). Always bring liquids, too, since they get as dried out talking as you do.
mischievous
About choice of advisor - this parable is the best explication of that I know of.
Choice of advisor really depends on how you want to do your research. (Having had two - both good, I feel I’m an expert. 
) Some students want to be assigned topics, and some professors have research programs where they need students to do specific jobs and investigate specific things. Some students, like me, come in wanting to explore a specific topic, and we need an advisor who will be flexible enough to let us do so. Getting the wrong type of advisor is going to cause problems.
There are horrid ones. A friend of ours had an advisor whose students tended to jump off bridges. He finished, but not before taking a break to work in industry for a while.
That would have worked on me! :eek: 
I actually had to defend at the Hons. B.A. level as well as at the M.A. level. Your thesis advisor should work with you such that you’re not producing something terribly controversial. If you choose, as I did in both cases (I didn’t do it to be contrary, mind you), to put forth theories that one of your advisors doesn’t agree with, you may have a harder time at the defense but I’m here to say that you can still survive and get your degree.
Believe me, after spending all that time reading and researching, you should be familiar enough with your topic to defend it ok. You can also get friends and other profs to read it and challenge you if you want to ‘rehearse’ for a defense.
I thought defending a thesis would be like a game of ‘Capture the Flag’ but for much higher stakes.
Doing a thesis defense is usually quite easy, because by that stage, you’ve gone through your thesis countless times, inside and out, and know nearly every aspect of it from every angle. The professors who are present for your defense will probably not know as much about the subject matter as you do. The only way to screw up your defense is by having a bad thesis which will doom you from the beginning anyway. I did my defense on Danish Unemployment. Yes it’s very much a nice area, to be sure, but this is typically the level of detail that you want to get into. Of course I didn’t cover everything about Danish Unemployment, but rather a particular period that had a very curious change compared to it’s Nordic neighbors. I went into that further and found policy changes that were relevant, and did my best to try to explain the oddity. Now, the head of my department was an expert in Swedish studies. He knew a good bit about the Danish system, but there’s no way he could know, to the exact details, of what I knew because he is obviously very busy with other things too. So in a way, your defense is really not the hardest part. They will have a couple of days to read it and come up with some questions, and for this part, you’ll usually clarify things that aren’t as obvious as they could be in the thesis, or you’ll be explaining certain details about what wasn’t included in your thesis that you did uncover through your research.
But a thesis based on statistics and facts is much easier to defend than one based on loose ideas in the field of political science. It’s very cool, though, to be in the position of advantage. I was quite worried about my defense, but in the end it went quite smoothly. After you’re walking away from the building, a HUGE smile will be on your face, because you’ll realize, “I’m DONE!” When you finish all of your coursework, you’re obviously burdened by the thesis. “Sorry, I can’t do anything tonight, I gotta work on my thesis.” But then you obviously procrastinate, and achieve nothing! But the point is that if you pick a topic that relies heavily on empirical data, you can be much more secure in your answers and your conclusions. Or you can use various lines of reasoning to explain changes in your data, this is fine as well. As long as you left no stone unturned in your research, then you should be fine for the defense and writing of the thesis as well.
We have a clueless dickhead of a guy here who did that to a guest speaker who came in to talk about his research. Friendly visit, letting the lab techs know more about his animal experiments. “Well, if so few people get the disease you are studying, why should resources go to you instead of someone else?” What an asshole of a git.
Well, I have to do it anyways. Have to give it my best shot or else spend the rest of my life wondering. I’m getting very accustomed to doing things that terrify me anyhow.