THESIS DEFENSE

The Thesis Defense is an oral presentation that covers the content of the following conversation related to your Thesis Project, also described in your Thesis Paper.

Q1: what is your project?

You: I’m interested in________. [INTRODUCTION]

Q2: Oh yeah? I don’t know anything about __________ .

You: The state of the art in ________ is … [BACKGROUND]

Q3: Cool. So what are you making?

You: I’m making a thing, that is a novel contribution to the field of _________. [PROJECT]
This is how I made it. [METHODS]

Q4: Rad. Does it work?

You: I assessed it in this way, changed it, then assessed it in that way, changed it, and now it works like this. [TESTING/RESULTS]

Q5: Ok, what does that mean?

You: These results show that this thing is important to the field of _______ for these reasons. [CONCLUSION]

Next, I’ll do this with it. [FUTURE PERSPECTIVES]

The Thesis Defense Panel is comprised of:

  • Your Project Advisor

  • Your Second Reader

  • Thesis Faculty

Date, Time, and Room in 370 Jay to be determined. Your Thesis Accountability Partner and Thesis Peers can also attend your presentation and Q&A. Some Pre-thesis students may also be in attendance.

You can assume that the members of your panel have read your Thesis Paper.

Although the theiss defense sounds intimidating, you can generally expect a small audience. You will receive constructive criticism on your project, but the defenses will take place several weeks before the larger, public presentation at the end of the term, so you will have plenty of time to improve.

BEFORE THE THESIS DEFENSE

  • Send your examination panel your FINAL paper AT LEAST ONE WEEK before your thesis defense. You want to make sure that everyone has time to read it and make suggestions on how to make it a stronger thesis at your presentation.

AT THE THESIS DEFENSE

  • You will have 20 minutes to present.

  • There will be 20 minutes of Q&A.

  • There will be 20 minutes of deliberation by your Thesis Panel.

Bring 2 copies of the signature pages on acid-free paper(what you will print the final Thesis on) or 3 copies if you want to get a bound copy for yourself to the Defense for signing. Please note that there are two different signature pages.

The first is seen in the NYU SoE’s Thesis guidelines, and contains spacing for:

  • Project Advisor (will sign at the end of the thesis defense)

  • Department Head (IDM’s Academic Advisor, Eric Maiello eric.maiello@nyu.edu, will get the department head’s signature once you give him the bound copies)

AFTER THE THESIS DEFENSE

  • 99.9% of projects will have corrections from their panel. These corrections must be made and approved before you print and bind your paper.

  • When your thesis is approved, you will have to bind 1 copy. If you want a bound copy for yourself, bind 2.

  • It takes a minimum of 4 days to bind.

  • The place to bind it is within NYU SoE’s Thesis guidelines

  • The bound copy is due to Eric Maiello BEFORE date indicated on Weekly Schedule