Second Doctoral Defense — The Final Step to Becoming a Doctor

My second doctoral examination marked the final stage of my long doctoral journey. Once I completed it, I was officially declared to have passed and earned the title of Doctor — later formally conferred at the graduation ceremony on March 25, 2025. This exam also marked the end of my time at NIMS, where I spent a total of five years — two as a Master’s student, three as a PhD student.

Much Lighter Than the First

Compared to the first exam, the second felt significantly lighter. The main focus was presenting new data that hadn’t been covered in the first defense, and showing clear improvement in the sections that got heavy feedback before. As a result, the phrase I heard most often at the start of Q&A was: “I can see improvement compared to the first examination.”

For me, that sentence was incredibly reassuring — a sign that as long as I’d taken the first defense’s feedback seriously, the second was likely to go smoothly.

Open to the Public

Another notable difference: the second defense was open to the public. Anyone could attend and ask questions. But since the examiners had already covered the fundamentals in the first defense, questions this time leaned toward more advanced territory — the new data I presented, potential future applications, and where the dissertation could go from here.

Relief, Even with One Paper Still Under Review

After the second exam, the dominant feeling was relief — I was completely confident I’d graduate. Even though one paper was still under review, I no longer needed to run additional experiments. My research was substantively done.

Interestingly, the paper I’d submitted before the defense was initially rejected. We resubmitted to a different journal in early March, and it was eventually accepted and published in May 2025 — shortly after I officially graduated.

The “Three-Paper Rule” Wasn’t Applied Rigidly After All

This reinforced what I’d already come to understand about the graduation requirements. Doctoral students at NIMS are unofficially expected to publish three international journal papers as first author — but in practice, I was allowed to graduate with two published papers and one still under submission, which was accepted after graduation.

From this, I realized the “three-paper requirement” isn’t always applied rigidly. It probably functions more as psychological pressure — a way to keep doctoral students productive and working hard until the very end.

Looking back on five years at NIMS, I can honestly say it was one of the most valuable and unforgettable chapters of my life — not just because of the degree, but because of the long process that shaped how I think, work, and handle pressure, both in academic life and beyond.