Thesis Defense

Me and thesis-mates during our pilot study

It takes thirty minutes to present a thesis you’ve worked on for the last year. In those minutes, a panel of experts scrutinize every move you do, every word you utter, and every step you’ve taken. And you have no one to lean on aside from yourself and your research team who share the same hopes getting this over. You are sleep deprived for days and the manifestations from the caffeine overdose you inflicted upon yourself last night had become more evident. You could feel the blood vessels in your temporal pulsating and those episodes of blank stares increase in recurrence.

By the way, our study is a True experiment that utilized the use of a video to educate young males about to undergo circumcision. We had two groups: one who received the conventional health teachings while the other group was asked to watch the video. Then we evaluated its effects on the knowledge and the pain perception using a knowledge assessment tool and the Visual Analogue Scale (VAS) for pain. Based on our results, there had been significant increase in the knowledge scores and a decrease in the pain perception. Therefore, our intervention can be concluded as effective.

Although our group had a bumpy start, we realize it is never too late to fix things and pave the way for a smoother, better road. The benefits of delayed gratification just gets even more satisfying as it gets delayed. We have good results, plus we were able to carry on with having a true experiment and it is just up to us on how we will convey the information to the panelists.

Minutes before the defense, I suddenly had this heavy feeling of the stress and exhaustion. Then I remembered a line from the Desiderata which says:

With all its sham, drudgery, and broken dreams, it is still a beautiful world. Be cheerful. Strive to be happy.

Indeed, those lines were very comforting at that time. We started the presentation at around two o’clock. At around two thirty, the defense started and I was just simply amazed on how eloquent and spontaneous my groupmates were. At some point, I feel that we are already professionals defending a full blown research, citing sources in our responses, justifying our choices in the research design. Indeed, no one knows your research better than yourselves.

After our defense, the panelists asked us to wait outside while they deliberated among themselves. Personally, I was expecting a grade maximum of 88 based from what we presented. But it turns out that the panelists didn’t seem to agree with me and gave us a score of Meritus (91%) for the manuscript and Bene Meritus  (93%) for the oral defense. 

Good bye sleepless nights! :)