This was the day that Dom presented her Thesis to the jury. We arrived just in time due to fog and road works on the motorway.
The room was full of family and friends – I suppose there were 30 of us altogether.
From beginning to end Dom’s speech just flowed. Her PowerPoint presentation was clear and worked perfectly from beginning to end. She just had 22 minutes for her presentation and then the jury asked her questions about her work. She answered it all with no problems and noted their suggestions.
During question time there was a lot of coming and going as people were popping in to see how it was going and going off to lectures etc.; all in silence. Dom had suggested we sat at the back in case we found it boring. Definitely not at all!
Her supervisor ran through all of the other work she’s been doing during her PhD which was very impressive and made Rob and I feel very proud of her.
Then we all had to go out while the jury made their decision.
It didn’t take too long and we all went in to hear the result; her doctorate was awarded with the note “Très honorable avec félicitations du Jury”. That’s the highest you can get.
We had champagne and nibbles and met some of the people that we had only heard about over the past few years – as well as some old friends. I thanked her supervisor (who is also vice president of Poitiers University!) for all of the lovely things that he had said. He’s a very nice man – Dom has been very fortunate to have had such a supportive department.
Dom dedicated her Thesis to J-M , her husband and also to Holly the cat who gave her love and support despite not really being interested in human dialogue.
After that, we went out to lunch and back to Dom & J-M’s for a cup of tea. Holly gave us a really friendly greeting – I thought that she might have forgotten us. It’s the first time we’d visited since helping them to move in, so it was interesting to see how the rooms looked without piles of furniture and boxes.
It was getting dark when we set off home, fortunately the fog had cleared.
2 comments:
Reading that post reminded me of my Susan's presentation which went like that almost word for word. If I changed the names, it could have been.
We had drinkies and things-on-sticks afterwards. She was the only one that year to get a Hons Degree, which led to a year at Oxford to get a Masters Degree.
She now works as a checkout girl at Tescos !
Keith: I must remind Dom to watch that she doesn't end up as a checkout girl in Carrefour. Were you grinning from ear to ear like I was?
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