Steve Tippins Ph.D.Helping doctoral students get their dissertation accepted, succeed in their careers, & change the world | Academic Career Advisor | Dissertation Chair & Founder, Beyond PhD Coaching | 35 + years of experience.

He helped me prepare for my defense

26 Jun 2026 · 1 min

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In this first‑person testimonial, the speaker recounts how a mentor helped them prepare for an academic defense by providing a concrete PowerPoint template limited to about 11–12 slides and emphasizing the importance of slide flow. The mentor insisted the speaker treat preparation like a full‑time job, allocating daily time to rehearse, record, and review their presentation. By consistently practicing and refining the slides, the speaker became comfortable delivering the defense, ultimately running through the slides smoothly on the day of the defense.

Chapters

So, you know, of course they give you like a PowerPoint. It's kind of like a template. And by the time you finish, you're supposed to have like around 11 slides. I am a speaker, but I just couldn't speak. I couldn't do it. And, you know, I kept going back and forth. I'm like, okay, the same thing. Oh, this is not going in properly. This doesn't sound right. This doesn't have a flow. Go back the same. It's like, you only need 12 slides. These are the 12 slides that you need. I know you want to put everything in, but this is not the space. So this is what's needed. And then he told me, he's like, this is going to be like a full-time job. You're going to get up every day, you're going to set aside these hours, and you're going to practice. It's like record yourself, practice, record yourself, practice, record yourself. And I'm so glad I did that because by the time my defense, it was kind of like I was just running through slides like, yeah. So that really helped.