🙂
HKU (Hong Kong)
No food or drink served. The candidate gives the talk, the audience asks questions, and the jury members discuss the final fate behind the door. The entire thing is over in about an hour.
Stanford (USA)
The reception food quality determines whether you pass, but do not serve coffee, as it can make jury members unnecessarily aggressive. The rest is similar to above.
INRIA (France)
The jury members meet for lunch in a nice restaurant (French, of course). The talk, QA, and jury discussion parts are similar to above. After that, a fancy reception is served (Tunisian pastry in my case). And if you, as a jury member, do not ask for trouble during the defense, you get invited to dinner in an even nicer restaurant (French, course). The entire thing takes about 11 hours.
Leave a Reply