Chapter 11: My Big Day

Friday was my big day. I don’t go to High School at all. I take the morning to myself then Gran drives me to the university. One of the things we haven’t discussed with the university is if the thesis presentation would be public or not. They chose public. There are all kinds of media that I am not expecting. The university ends up changing the venue at the last minute to accommodate everybody that shows up.

I am glad to see Rachel is there with our lawyer. Gran is given a front-row seat with the professors that are there to challenge me. Typically, a thesis defence takes 2 hours. Most of that is the presentation itself. The faculty members in attendance were given a copy of my thesis in advance. Some have read it, so they could have questions prepared. Others just showed up and will come up with questions during my presentation.

Since I am defending a thesis for three different degrees, my presentation goes on a lot longer. I don’t open the floor to questions for over four hours. I could have gone on much longer. I remember in my first life, my last engineering test was for qualification on the training ships. It was a little 210 ton ship. The drawing they gave me was the main shaft line. Most people would have drawn the shaft and given a 15 - 20 minute presentation before the board members started asking questions about it. I talked for 90 minutes, and I still had more information to give.

With the thesis, four hours is more than enough time that people are having problems sitting. I have more prepared, but it is all stuff that isn’t crucial, and I see an opportunity to give everybody a break. When I am ready to present the next segment, I stop and address the professors. “It is a good time for a break. I can see many people need to go to the bathroom, and others still have places they have to be. I would suggest we pause now. The only question is, do you want me to do my conclusion now or do you want me to continue when we get back?”

It doesn’t take them long to deliberate. They ask for my conclusion, and it takes me a couple minutes to wrap everything up. We then break.

Gran comes up and hugs me. Rachel joins in. Gran says, “I didn’t think the presentation was supposed to last that long.”

“They normally don’t. Remember, a normal thesis is meant for one degree. This is for three.”

Rachel is surprised by that. I guess I forgot to tell her. I can’t stick around to socialize with them. The entire presentation I needed to drink continuously, so I could project my voice without losing it. After going to the bathroom, then refilling my pitcher of water, it is time to begin again. This is always my least favourite part. There are usually one or two people that impress me and ask intelligent questions beyond what I thought them capable of. There is always one I want to kill by the time it is over.

People think that just because a person has a master’s or a doctorate, they are smart. That isn’t always the case. It is possible to get your degree through attrition. You can keep plugging away at the degree until you finally get it, but if you do that, you will likely have forgotten a lot of what you were supposed to retain. This type of loser is my least favourite. They tend to think they are important and use the fact that they have their degree as a way to impress. They are one of the class of people that likes to show everybody how important they are even though the world would likely be better off without them.