Time vanishes so quickly! While you’re busy with experiments, reading journal articles, and preparing for presentations, the home stretch reaches you before you know it. Now it is time to write your thesis and defend your dissertation. We have advice and perspectives from Mayo Graduate School (MGS) graduates and faculty to give insight into preparing for your defense.
Program Director for Immunology
Associate Professor of Immunology, College of Medicine
Instructor in Pharmacology, College of Medicine
As a professor, what recommendations or advice do you have for graduate students writing their thesis?
How long should a graduate student allow for writing their thesis?
I think students should take only 4 weeks to write the thesis. Six to eight weeks if they are also working a lot in the lab during this time. For most students, all they really need to write new is the 1st chapter (the introduction) and the last chapter (the conclusion). The other chapters are typically his or her published papers word for word, just reformatted, so that is relatively quick. Additional chapters can be added to describe unpublished results. If there are a lot of unpublished results included in the thesis, the student may need more time to write these up.
What are common mistakes or areas a graduate student should prepare for on the day of or during their defense?
Be sure your talk is only approximately 40-45 minutes long, since there will be a long introduction by your advisor, and you will probably have a longer than usual thank you section at the end.
When should Ph.D. candidates begin to look for post-doc or other post-grad opportunities?
At least 1 year before you graduate you should be looking for a post doc or other post grad position.
Also, at every scientific meeting you attend as a student, even in your 2nd or 3rd year, you should be chatting up other scientists and writing down their names if you find their work interesting and following up via email. You can then contact these scientists about 1 year before you finish, to ask if they might have interest in hiring you as a postdoc.
Jessica Silva-Fisher Ph.D.
BMB graduate 2011
The Genome Institute at Washington University
Do you have any recommendations or advice you wished you would have had prior to writing your thesis?
Begin as early as you can. Do not wait till the last minute. You will have lots of edits and re-edits. Utilize your publications for your thesis as it makes writing faster. Utilize a good cite program such as Endnote.
How long did it take you to complete your thesis?
About 3 months. I had 1 book chapter, 1 publication, and 1 publication in progress, so this made writing faster and easier. I was able to simply use each one of these as chapters. I would recommend to start writing this at least 6 months....background and conclusions take the longest.
Are your committee members instrumental in helping you go through the process?
YES! My thesis advisor made edits and I sent it to my committee members for edits as well. They sent back their comments and marked it red. This then made it easy to submit the final thesis for defense. They give support and encouragement to finish and wrap up everything in a good time length.
Were there any Mayo resources you were able to use to help write your thesis?
Ask your thesis advisor to let you see their previous students’ bound final thesis. Many or all of advisors have a copy of their students’ theses. This helped me with my format (as you can create your own) to see what you like and what you don't like. Each student’s thesis varies in length and style. Get a copy of Endnote, write in the library for extra focus.
What would have made you feel more prepared during the defense of your dissertation?
Practice, practice, practice in front of different people. Send your advisor your presentation for edits. Use your friends for practice, the more diverse they are (in different departments or programs) the better. They will give you perspective you didn't think about previously. The more you practice it (can do it without even looking at the slides) the more confidence you will have. The more confidence you have the fewer questions they will ask you (they will assume you know everything)!
When did you begin to look for a post-doc or other post-grad opportunities?
About 1 year in advance. You want to be going to interviews the last several months before your defense so you can begin your post-grad position right away. Talk with your advisor about your plans and goals. Do a PubMed search of the topic you are interested in and look who is the PI of the lab and see if your advisor knows them. If He/She does, they can give a nice call or intro email for you. Then you can email them introducing yourself and ask for an interview. It's always easier to network for a position than to do it on your own.
Also, make sure you have a well written CV and attach it to the email. Do mock interviews and prepare answers in advance of doing interviews.
Don't forget to look for non-traditional jobs as well.....government, scientific writing, industry, etc. You never know what you may find.
Following my advisor's advice "Kick As@ and Take Names!" Miss ya Dave Smith 🙂
Do you have any recommendations or advice you wished you would have had prior to writing your thesis?
I had access to a previous dissertation to see the formatting. I also discussed with my mentor well before starting content and organization
How long did it take you to complete your thesis?
Four to five months (included writing one final manuscript to start which became one chapter)
Were there any Mayo resources you were able to use to help write your thesis?
I did use the Mayo image archive to design one image as my overarching hypothesis.
When did you begin to look for a post-doc or other post-grad opportunities?
Not yet. I finished the final two years of medical school (graduating both programs in a couple of weeks) and heading to residency.
Justin Juskewitch M.D., Ph.D.
Tags: Jessica Silva, Karen Hedin, Mayo Graduate School, research, Uncategorized