Getting my Doctoral Degree (Tech.) just about now

D.Sc. time. Soon.

Hi folks! Just a brief, wholly me-centric post about, well, me today.

Long story short: I recently successfully defended my doctoral thesis last Friday (15 September 2017). So, I should be officially getting my degree later this week.

Below, you can find some points and details that might be unclear otherwise:

• The official title is Doctor of Science (Technology), or D.Sc. (tech). Which is more or less equivalent to the more well-known Ph.D.
• The public defense (or public examination) of the thesis is largely a formality. The only way to fail at that point would be getting caught of plagiarism, or some other severe misconduct.
• The point above might not prevent your opponent from thoroughly roasting you no matter what.
• I was semi-lucky in that respect. The questions were tough, but concerned expanding the work in my thesis, rather than the thesis itself. Plus I hear it was actually interesting for the audience, which is something that cannot be said about 90 % of the public examinations.
• Our doctoral theses go through a pre-examination by at least two independent examiners, most often from other countries.  Before that, it goes through one’s supervising professor, and the doctoral committee of the school. After the pre-examination, it goes through the same committee again. It is mainly these factors that makes the public examination a formality – the thesis has already been examined quite thoroughly.
• Furthermore, almost all our theses are article dissertations. They consist of an introduction/overview of at least 4 articles published in international journals by the author. So, the body of the thesis has already, in effect, been examined by the peer-reviewers.
• The nominal time for getting one’s degree is four years.
• Which actually translates to 3.5 years from the start, to the beginning of the pre-examination process.
• Most people take longer than that. Which is no surprise in my opinion.
• Despite what the internet says, we don’t get doctoral swords by default here in default. It is downright impossible in most universities, and rare in the remaining ones.
• Which is a shame. I would definitely opt for a doctoral claymore if I could. Or a doctoral bastard sword. Or a power axe.
• We can buy a fancy hat for 600 euros (800 bucks with the current rate) if we want. I think I’ll pass.

-Antti

Getting my Doctoral Degree (Tech.) just about now