After the Defense: How to Celebrate, Regroup, and Move On

This post wraps up a series on defending your dissertation. The previous posts in the series covered preparing for the defense and tips for just before and during the defense. Today, we’ll consider what to do after the defense.

When the Defense is Over

Well, here you are. You have been preparing to defend your dissertation for years, really. And you’ve been preparing intensely for weeks or months, sweating, losing sleep, concentrating all your energy on these few hours. Now it’s finished. And if you are like most graduate students, you’ve probably been so focused on being finished that you haven’t really thought about what comes afterwards. You may be asking yourself, “What do I do now?”

Choose Your Own Adventure

The answer to the question “What do I do now” depends on the outcome of the defense. So the rest of this post will be set up like those “Choose Your Own Adventure” books for kids. This outcome of the defense will be one of three things.

The first thing that can happen is that you pass with no revisions. This is rare, but it does happen. Your committee said that your work was perfect – or at least perfectly acceptable – and they didn’t ask for any changes. In this case, go directly to “celebrate,” and you may collect your $200 when you pass Go. Breathe a prayer of gratitude, and send your advisor a nice thank-you note and a bottle of bourbon or a coffee gift card or a new car or something.

The second possible outcome is that you pass with revisions. This is what happens most of the time. If this is you, go to “move on” and then return to “celebrate.”

Finally, it is probably even more rare than passing with no revisions, but the unpleasant truth is that in some cases, a graduate student fails the defense. If this is you, go to “regroup.”

Regroup: If You Do Not Pass

Sometimes, students don’t pass their defense because their advisor let them defend before they were ready. Sometimes, a committee member may have a (reasonable or unreasonable) objection to something in your work that is big enough that revisions won’t fix it. Sometimes, the student may have ignored advice on preparing and presenting. It isn’t important to figure out what went wrong in order to assign blame. It is, however, important to figure out what went wrong in order to avoid that same thing happening again.

Here are some steps to take if you fail the defense.

Take a minute. Before you do anything, give yourself time to calm down and regain perspective. The situation you are in is not great, but it is not the end of the world. It doesn’t necessarily even need to be the end of your doctoral journey. Take a breath, look around you, and have a good cry if you need one.
Meet with your advisor. In a calm, non-accusatory way, ask your advisor to help you understand what went wrong and whether there is a way forward.
Figure out a game plan. It is very possible that you don’t need to start back at the beginning. Maybe you can take your research in another direction or shore up the serious issues identified in the defense and come back in months or a year to try again. Some programs have a certain time students need to wait before defending a second time.
On the other hand, you may decide at this point that it is time to take a longer pause or a complete break from doctoral work. Or that may be decided for you. If that’s the case, you still need to figure out what’s next for you. You have likely learned a lot of knowledge and skills in your graduate school years. Consider whether there is a way to turn those assets into a career that does not require the letters behind your name.
Avoid bitterness. Harboring resentment against your advisor, your committee, your school, or yourself is not going to help anyone. It will probably make you sick, and it will definitely make you unpleasant company. Seek out a pastor, friend, or therapist to help you work through this time and avoid long-term anger.

Move On: If You Pass with Revisions

Welcome to the world of post-defense stress. It’s not as bad as pre-defense stress, but the truth is, you will need to spend some time (and maybe some money) polishing your work for your committee to sign off. Depending on how close your defense happened to the deadline for submitting your dissertation, this period can be compressed and hectic, or a longer slog.

As you revise, here are some things to consider.

Start with a day of rest and celebration. Yes, you do still have work to do, but you just accomplished something huge! Give yourself time to bask in the glow. Say thank you to important people. Spend a Saturday with the family or the dog. Take yourself out to dinner. Call yourself “Doctor.”
Get to work. Meet with your advisor or at least communicate by email to see what changes they think are vital. Often the advisor will send a list with committee requests that you must follow and suggestions that you can consider. Figure out what needs to be done, and make a timeline for doing it.
Understand the requirements. Probably there is some paperwork you need to fill out, final formatting gates you need to pass through, and money that you need to pay for graduation. Make sure you know what you need to do and do it on time.
Hire some help. If you have not already used an editor, chances are, your dissertation has a lot of mechanical and grammatical errors. Your writing could probably be clearer. You may not have perfectly followed the style dictated by your field. It is almost impossible to copyedit your own work, and the money you spend hiring someone to do this can remove a lot of stress. If your school has stringent document formatting requirements, you may also want to hire someone to help with formatting.
Appreciate the process. This is your opportunity to make your work as good as you can before making it available to the world (at least to the world that has ProQuest access).

Celebrate: The Hard Work Is Done

Congratulations! You have reached the end of a long and difficult road. Many of the students I work with say that completing their dissertation is the more difficult thing they have ever done.

Here’s what you should do now.

Say thank you. There are many people who supported you on this journey. Some of them are in your Acknowledgements section. Now is the time to thank all those people personally.
Have a party. Whatever celebration looks like for you, whether a weekend away, a get-together with friends, or a fancy dinner out, make sure you mark this occasion in a formal way.
Reflect on your accomplishment. For some people, earning a doctorate is the beginning of a search for an academic or non-academic job. For others, it is a milestone in an already established career. For still others, it is a personal goal fulfilled. A friend of mine said that earning her doctorate didn’t change her life, but even now, decades later, she sometimes stops and thinks, “I have a Ph.D.” And it’s kind of nice. Give yourself time to enjoy that.
Reflect some more. You probably learned a lot more than just facts about your subject area and research methodologies during your time in graduate school. Take some time to consolidate that learning and figure out how to apply it. The Well-Ordered Blog post on How to Set Goals has some guidance for reflection and goal-setting that might be helpful at this point.
Consider publication. You’ve done a lot of work. Maybe some things that you have found will be interesting or helpful to others. Think about ways to get your contribution out there, whether through traditional academic journals, a book, a website or manual, or speaking engagements. The venue you choose will depend on your topic, field, and career goals.