When will you be done? What will you do?

When people learn I'm in a doctoral program the responses are pretty standard, and have become so that I know by the response what kind of person I'm dealing with. Or vice versa. They are:

•  Looks of bewilderment, as though seeing a strange and perhaps perplexing rather large insect.
•  The verbalization of above, into something like, "o god, what are you doing to do with that"
•  Detailed tales of how the person (if they have post Bachelor qualifications) had thought of or are planning on doing a doctorate.
• Those that are pleased and think it's great.

Almost the moment I began doctoral studies people would ask me, "when will you be done." I would like to say, "I just began, leave me alone" or "who cares" "what difference will it make to you" and now, "jeez, let's not talk about this shall we." I'm more polite than inside my head (mostly) so I explain that in our department the average completion time seems to be about eight years. They often express surprise, to which I respond, "it's a doctorate, it's a lot of work."

They sometimes still seem confused and probably have inner monologues something like, "that girls is nuts" "why would you want to be in school so long" "what exactly is this doctorate." Sometimes I go even further and explain, that each department is different, and different disciplines have different expectations thereby having different completion rates.  I never talk about the problems in our department that has so many people behind schedule (I don't understand them myself). I rarely, explain that in Canada and the US we have coursework expectations (actual classes, yes, that take at least one year as well as a series of examinations known as the "comps" that take at least another year) whereas in the UK they skip this stage, going straight into developing proposals, conducting research and writing out a dissertation. As well, in anthropology, unlike other disciplines,  we are expected to spend at least one full year in the fieldwork site gathering data and information.  Taking more time. And the length of the dissertation varies, from discipline to schools -- my anthropology dissertation should be between 400-500 pages whereas a colleague of mine completed their PhD in biology with a paper of 120 pages and that included diagrams and references (my MA without references or appendences came to 140, which is normal).

The other question I usually get, or as a follow up to the first question or from other doctoral students (and I'm not sure if it's because they are interested, or making small talk, or confused) is:

• What will you do when you're done?
• What kind of job will you get?

My inner monologue says, "who cares" "what business is it of yours" "I'm not going to tell you 'cause then you may evil eye me or somehow be competition for my plan" "I haven't got a job offer as yet so I can't really tell you." My polite outer speech says, "O, there are lots of options for a person with a doctorate degree. It really depends on what you're studying. For example..." and I go on to give some random examples of PhDs working outside of academia.Most of the time I really don't have answers for people; I'm not a fortune teller. Or, sometimes I don't want to talk about things that are as yet unformed, jelly-like.

defending

When I was set to defend my MA thesis (From Kapahaka to Hip Hop: Maori Popular Music in Aotearoa/New Zealand) I had had a lot of advice from one of my undergraduate mentors and went in fairly confident and happily came out with a defended thesis. The process was fun and interesting and there were a lot of future possibilities introduced, particularly by the external,  if I had decided to take a similar project to the doctoral level.

My first PhD defence viewing came last fall, with my friend, colleague and "academic sibling" (we have the same advisor). It was like my MA experience: brilliant, fun, interesting, and full of future possibility. My second came this fall with another colleague, this time someone doing work in the same region as I but in a different discipline. I could only stay for the first round of questioning, that lasted two hours, but I was (and still am) quite taken aback by the differences between the two experiences.  The second was quite interesting but not so fun and full of future possibility. Rather it was more of a fight and I felt the defendant didn't handle the questions and comments posed in quite the way the examiners would have liked. They examiners all complimented the writing as rich and well written, which I'm not sure is one of those we have to start with something nice to say comments akin to "interesting" for after, the rest was, in my view, certainly compared to the first, pretty brutal.

Questions asked & comments made, without being too revealing as to disclose identities, were: how power relations played out on the ground, what kinds of changing power dynamics could be seen, could any change be seen, who is doing advocacy work, what is being advocated for, what about displaced people, lots of things are going on and they are not necessarily compatible each other, and that wasn't addressed, what was the role of the state, missed opportunity to include/address key historical events, no sense of positive, no sense of gender,  writing as ethnography not clearly addressed...  answers were, the chapters weren't meant to be read in a particular way, and there was a lot of uncertainty and a lot of circumvention to the answers overall. The real act of aggression came with the supervisor (who is supposed to ask fluffy questions to let the candidate shine) asked about theoretical positionality (itself fairly fluffy by the point of defense), that the candidate did not want to address. The candidate continued to circumvent the subject, refusing to align with the supervisor's take. The external spoke up on the candidate's behalf, pointing out the strongest theoretical stance to which the supervisor responded "I want to hear the candidate say it." Yet the candidate continued to refuse and the external said, "I'm defending your student which is what you're supposed to be doing."

Why this was so is unclear to me. I suspect in large part it had to do with the relationship between the student and the advisor which in the first case was a good one of mutual respect, support and reflection on the advisor's comments. And, in latter case, a terribly antagonistic, unhappy interaction for years. I also suspect that some of it may be personality oriented, the first was a very laid back person while the second was more high strung. Or, perhaps this is what a defence is normally like and the first was an anomaly .... In any case, it was successful. I am compelled to add that I also had a number of problems with the content as it was presented but as I hadn't read the draft dissertation  nor I am on the committee...  so they lie waiting for me to be a reviewer on some future project.  In the meantime, I genuinely respect and like my advisor and committee members and their academic prowess, so hopefully,  when it comes my time again it will be fun, supportive, full of future possibility process that gives me the chance to shine like I've eaten diamonds for breakfast.

A master's or doctoral defence on a thesis or dissertation (that is original work) is the final step in these degrees that lasts two to three hours. It usually consists of two rounds of oral questioning by your committee, university representatives and an external specialist.