First thesis committee meeting

[Tall Chai Latte]

My first thesis committee meeting is coming in two weeks. Right now the major task to generate enough preliminary data and solidifying the technology platform to support the story line, but I'm not sure what to expect so feeling a little shaky in organizing my thoughts. Eek... What is expected of students who is presenting for their first committee meeting? How did your first committee meeting go? Man I feel like my story is all over the place 

[fuzzylogician]

This is not a thing we do in my program--I've never met with any of the (three) committees I've had over the course of my studies for various papers prior to defending the paper, and I don't expect to ever have my entire dissertation committee in the same room before I defend (and even then it's likely that one person will only be attending via skype). That said, I imagine that the individual meetings I had with professors when I initially invited them to join my dissertation committee may have been similar to your meeting with your committee -- they knew I wanted to talk about my project and I kind of presented my project in broad terms; I had about an hour to talk so I basically collected all the relevant facts that I knew, framed the main questions I was interested in, and sketched the way in which I thought the analysis was going to go, though that part was very sketchy, as you might expect. The meeting then progressed in very different ways with different committee members, basically depending on where their interests lie. All asked questions about possible growth areas and conversely areas where more fact-finding areas might be needed; each had the part they believed more or less (not the same parts), some concentrated more on sources of data, others on methodologies, etc. Each of them ended up giving me pointers going in different directions and some general feedback on the strength of the project. 

 

Basically the way I would prepare for this kind of meeting is just create a presentation of the current state of the project (data, methodologies, previous findings) and lead with the open questions or areas that need more work, explaining how I planned to proceed and what parts I thought I could do vs. what I'd probably leave open--it's ok to carve some part of a problem that you can reasonably define as the core question or data. Depending on how much time you have to talk, I imagine more/less details will be expected. I assume you know the people on your committee; spend some time imagining what they might be more inclined towards and where they may ask you questions or be unconvinced. Maybe even meet with them individually to talk about your project before the committee meeting, that's probably the best way to get an idea of what they're thinking and also to get advice on preparing for the meeting. Ask older students how their meeting(s) went--that too is a good way to know what the process looks like at your school, since these things can greatly differ across institutions. If your program is a healthy one, the committee should be on your side and there to help you, not intimidate you or impede your growth. Take advantage of the smart people who have all come there to hear what you're doing, and don't be afraid to make mistakes or not know the answers to everything, because you're not expected to!