FAQ: The “Snake Fight” Portion of Your Thesis Defense (2010)

mcsweeneys.net

45 points·jbredeche··7 comments

> Q: Would someone who wrote a bad thesis and defeated a large snake get the same grade as someone who wrote a good thesis and defeated a small snake?

> A: Yes.

This matches my experience. My experiments didn't produce the results I hoped for and I was out of time. The conclusions were essentially "here's why I think this approach was wrong, more research is needed." Lame.

But I defended it well and stuck to my "information gain despite empirical failure" talking points. Got an A and graduated.

I have my "snake fight" scheduled for two weeks from now, so this is good to keep in mind.

My plan is to prepare numerous backup slides with lots of Python that I can use to distract the snake.

This sounds like the "I bring a bomb onto the plane, which I don't explode. The odds of there being two bombs on a plane is so tiny it's insignificant, so I'm safe from terrorism" plan. Seems sound to me!

Other potential safety precautions involve bringing a polka-patterned snake-catching device: specifically, an ASP.NET

distract it with ants

I’ve been giving friends small (rubber) cobras as part of their thesis defenses for the past few years. They really need to work on their bibliographies.

> Q: Could the snake kill me?

> A: That almost never happens. But if you’re worried, just make sure that you write a good thesis.

Addendum: You'll get some experience in fighting snakes during your comprehensive exam as well. If the fight was rough try to pick a different species of snake for your defense.

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