The Major Area Exam, Dissertation Proposal, and Thesis Defense are three very important milestones in the career of a Ph.D. student in the CS Dept. at UC Santa Barbara. They are essentially the "beginning, middle, and end" of a Ph.D. student's research.
Some general information about each of these appears below. But first, some tips for audience members that are attending one of these events as a "guest", i.e. someone other than the candidate or a committee member.
First, you reallly are welcome to attend. The announcements for these events generally conclude with "Everyone Welcome", and they really mean it.
However, please know that this is also a very high stakes event for the Ph.D. candidate that is presenting. So please be understanding that he/she may be under a lot of pressure, and try to have compassion for her/him.
And, because of the high stakes, there is some special (though unofficial) audience protocol. The following things are good to know to help the student, and avoid embarassment for you, the candidate, or the candidate's faculty committee.
(1) Sit near the back. Generally speaking, the format is that the Ph.D. student's committee sits near the front of the room (in the first or second row), while everyone else sits closer to the back of the room.
(2) Be a specator only. While in an ordinary talk, I'd encourage everyone, including CCS students, to ask questions of the speaker, things are different at a Ph.D. thesis proposal (or major area exam, or thesis defense). Under these circumstances, it is a sign of good discretion to be only a spectator, and let the committee members and the candidate do all the talking.
(Even if the committee chair invites questions from the audience, my advice would be that this is often just a formality. It is better to save your questions for another time. :-) )
(3) Be prepared to leave the room when asked to do so. At the end of the talk, after a few "public" questions from the committee, the audience is generally asked to leave the room while the committee asks the candidate some questions in private. It is good form to leave the room quickly and quietly when asked to do so—and not by way of the goodie table (see next item) :-)
(4) Arrive 5-10 min early. There is often food/drink provided, though not always.
So it is good to arrive early, and get all the goodies you are going to get, and then be seated before the event starts.
It is not good form to arrive late, so if you can't come on time, it might be better to not come. It is especially bad form to arrive late, and neverthless go to the goodie table (possibly distracting the speaker or the committee), or to grab more goodies from the table on your way out of the room when the audience is asked to leave. :-)
The three milestone presentations that a Ph.D student makes are:
Sometimes the "Major Area Exam and Dissertation Proposal" are combined into one presentation.
The Thesis Defense is always separate from the other two.
In the Major Area Exam, the student gives an overview of a particular area of research. In the words of the CS Dept Web Site: "a major area examination tests the student's knowledge of this area and any
necessary supporting areas. As a part of this oral examination, a student submits a set of relevant papers from the major area and prepares a brief presentation. Passing this examination allows this student to advance to candidacy for the doctoral degree."
The Dissertation Proposal is the next step. In the words of the CS Dept web site, this proposal "describes the dissertation topic, summarizes the relevant background literature, and presents acomprehensive research plan for the doctoral dissertation. The thesis proposal examination determines the feasibility of the research plan
and the appropriateness of the research topic."
The final step, once the research is concluded is the Thesis Defense or Dissertation Defense. (Note: the words "thesis" and "dissertation" are generally interchangeable.)
The defense is an "evaluation by the candidate's doctoral committee on whether the student has successfully defended the dissertation."
To be a successful Ph.D. dissertation, the dissertation should present a "thesis", that is one or more "hypotheses" or "claims". These are sometimes called the "results" of the dissertation. The candidate then writes a book-length document (the "dissertation") in which evidence for these claims or results is presented.
The committee needs to verify that the claims are original (i.e. not already proven elsewhere), significant (not something trivial or unimportant), and that the evidence presented is sufficient (i.e. that the claims can be considered valid by the scientific community.) The committee may ask questions that force the student to "defend" these claims—hence the word "defense".
The committee needs to verify this, because if they choose to pass the dissertation, they will "sign it" (literally affix their own signatures) to attest that, in their scientific and professional opinion, the dissertation was successfully defended, and the student may graduate with a Ph.D. Essentially, the committee members are backing up the dissertation, and the person presenting it, with their own professional and scientific reputations.
This may help us understand why the event is kind of a "significant moment" for both the candidate and the committee, and why there is some special---though generally "unwritten"---audience protocol.
Phill Conrad, Lecturer (PSOE), Dept. of Computer Science, and College of Creative Studies, UC Santa Barbara
Comments welcome at: pconrad@cs.ucsb.edu