Back in April this year I submitted my PhD thesis after about 3.5 years of research and writing. In the post I wrote about this (see Building #23) I sounded relieved yet cautious as I knew that it might still take as much as a year to finalise the thesis.
I was right to adopt this careful approach - my viva or oral examination only took place yesterday, more than six months after I submitted the thesis! This is an unusually long gap. In my case it’s because I’m doing a joint-degree between two universities in different countries, and agreeing on panel, process and a date, as well as the traditional academic summer break, caused the delay.
The viva was an interesting occasion, not public, but involving a panel of seven academics from four different universities, of whom five were online. Fortunately the technology performed.
A number of questions were put to me about my research on early reinforced concrete building design and construction in France and Belgium before the First World War. I’ve been examining the relationship between a novel building ‘materials-system’ and the technical design outcomes and attributes of the architects, engineers and contractors who had started to adopt it from the 1890s onwards.
Some of the questions were quite challenging, but I assume I must have given convincing enough answers: the outcome was that I passed subject to minor revisions!
The final stage of completion is to submit the corrected thesis within three months of being notified about the specific revisions.