Sara booked the biggest room available for her defense and it was full! She had a lot of friends and family visit. When I sat down, I introduced myself to the woman sitting next to me. She turned out to be a fellow PhD candidate. Her observation: “I go to these things all the time and usually there’s like four people watching.”
Sara’s adviser introduced Sara and the defense. He had a special message from Hogwarts and also pointed out that a royal baby waited to be born until Sara was ready to defend.
Sara explained the work she had done on a post-intentional phenomenological exploration of reading whitely. There were handouts.
At the end we got to ask questions.
Once the public defense was done Sara stayed behind for another hour of questions. After that, her committee voted though we weren’t there for that part.