Dissertation Defense Logistics at UT

This was adapted from ESW's Dissertation article

In the Semester You Plan to Defend

Registration:
- Ensure you are registered for "Dissertation W". You should have already completed "Dissertation R".
Graduation Application:
- Submit your online Doctoral Graduation Application here. There is no penalty for withdrawing if you decide not to graduate.

Schedule Defense:
- Tentatively schedule your defense time and location with your committee members. The defense date needs to be before mid-April for May graduations.
- Use tools like doodle polls to coordinate with the class schedules of your committee members.
Dissertation Distribution:
- You need to provide your dissertation to your committee at least 4 weeks before your defense date.

Reference Material:
- Check out previous group member theses on the shared drive for guidance.
Writing Advice:
- Spend about one month on writing, as recommended.
- Decide whether to request a publishing delay for your thesis.

Final Thesis Draft:
- Send the final thesis draft to your committee, which needs to be done 4 weeks before the defense date.

Request for Final Oral Examination:
- Have committee members sign the "Request for Final Oral Examination" form. It needs to be printed on pink paper, which you can pick up from Melanie's office or have her print for you.
- This form must be submitted confirming they received your thesis 4 weeks in advance. In a worst-case scenario, at least 2 weeks is acceptable.
Document Submission:
- Take the following documents to the ECE advising office for the grad advisor (currently Prof. Jack Lee) to sign:
  - Copy of the dissertation signature page
  - Copy of the dissertation title page
  - Copy of the dissertation abstract page
  - Copy of the table of contents and lists of figures and tables
- After these documents are signed, take them to the graduate office in the main building. Documents will be format checked at this time.
- You can schedule a format check for your entire thesis by contacting Bob Penman (email address on this page: https://gradschool.utexas.edu/academics/theses-and-dissertations/digital-submission-requirement#formatting). If you don't do this in advance, it will be done when you officially submit your thesis following your defense.
- Remind your committee again a week or two in advance of the date just in case

Confirmation:
- After submitting the pink sheet, you will receive an email from the graduate office confirming your defense date.
Presentation:
- Prepare for a ~45-minute presentation. Schedule a practice talk with the group in advance.
- Confirm that someone will bring snacks to your dissertation.

Thesis Revisions:
- Make revisions to the thesis if requested by the committee.
Submission:
- Bring the signed signature sheet to the graduate office.
- Confirm that your advisor has received the "gold sheet", which should also be submitted to the graduate office.
- Upload the final version of your thesis to the university.

Review Timeline:
- Show your thesis to Seth approximately one week before sending it to your committee.
Use of Figures:
- You can use figures from other papers in your background sections. Include "adapted from X et al." in the figure description.
Changes to Thesis:
- There are no restrictions on how much you can change your thesis between initially sending it to committee members and submitting it to UT.
Printed Copies:
- Offer a printed version of your thesis to your committee, but most do not request one.

Resources:
- Dissertation LaTeX template and class files are available. For Mac users, Latexian is recommended for its live preview feature. Windows users might prefer TeXstudio or TeXnicCenter with MikTeX.