PhD Defense Fun

Sri's Doktorhut

This week Sri gave his PhD dissertation defense. Most of the department attended the lecture and following question and answer period. Sri had a couple of people on Skype (physically present as a laptop in the front of the room with the sound turned up and the screen visible to Sri and his committee). He did an excellent job of defending his dissertation, which involved proving some interesting theoretical properties of transactional memory. Contrasting his defense with mine, which was over thirty years ago and half a world away (at the University of Arizona in Tucson), I don't recall having anyone at my defense except me and the professors on my committee. I think there may have been someone from the University administration there to oversee the proceedings.

A couple weeks ago, Anja, the professor who is the department head, mentioned in the weekly departmental meeting (called "cookies" because one of the department members brings cookies, ice cream, chips, fruit and other goodies which we nosh on during the proceedings) that we needed to take up a collection for the hat. I was intrigued. What hat? I asked a couple department members what this was all about, but they just looked away and mumbled.

Well, this week I found out. It's the tradition at TU Berlin to make a hat for the new Doktor, with various stuff on it that has some connection with the Doktor's dissertation topic. Above you can see a particularly fine example, the hat that Dan, Florian, and some others made for Sri. For example, see that thing with a round blue sign having a "60" on it, and a striped bar hanging down from what looks like a gate? An important part of Sri's dissertation was proving upper and lower bounds on transactional memory properties. The sign with "60" on it is a sign for the lower bound on vehicle speed in Germany, and the gate with a striped bar indicates an upper bound on vehicle size going through the gate.

Here's a  picture of Dan presenting the Doktorhut to Sri:

And here's Sri donning the hat:

 After the formal part of the proceedings, we adjourned to Schleusenkrugen, a beer garden along the Landwehr Canal, for dinner and a party. A good time was had by all, though it was pretty cold.

Germany universities seem to have a tradition of doing something goofy for someone who passes their PhD defense, at least in technical topics. When I was at Karlsruhe in 1978-79, the tradition was to make a float out of a small child's wagon and put stuff on it representative of the new Doktor's dissertation topic, and then pull the new Doktor around the campus to the cheers and jeers of bystanders. Here at TU Berlin, it's the hat. I think this is a way to tie what usually is a highly theoretical proceeding down to the mundane and practical, and to ensure that the new Doktor doesn't get too puffed up about about his newly acquired status. Besides which, it's fun!

In the US, we had nothing like this at the University of Arizona. When I finished with my defense, I went home and Town Mouse (who wasn't Town Mouse at the time) and I went out for dinner. I wonder if any other universities in the US or in other countries in Europe have traditions around doing something goofy for new Doktors?