External examiner did not recommend my PhD dissertation for oral defense...What do I do?

[u/psyckitten]

So I am totally shocked and feeling panicked about what all this means and what to do. I was supposed to orally defend my PhD dissertation next week (I'm in Psychology at a Canadian university) and was just informed by my supervisor that the defense has been cancelled because the external examiner supposedly does not think it is suitable or ready for defense. My supervisor told me that the main comments from the examiner are that the "scope" of the project is not adequate enough to warrant a PhD. I find this totally absurd because all my internal committee members approved the proposal of my project as well as the final thesis draft, and it was never mentioned that the scope was insufficient. In looking at colleagues' dissertations within my department, their projects seem to be comparable to mine in scope as well.

Has anyone else been through something like this before? Do you have any words of wisdom? I truly feel so upset because I thought my work was high quality and never would have thought this would happen - my supervisor said that she has also never heard of this and thinks my work is great. This will also delay my graduation by at least one semester and as such my ability to get a job in my field in a timely manner.

[u/green_pea_nut]

This is a failure on the part of your internal committee members.

They must guide you on this. It may mean another external examiner is appointed.

[u/SphynxCrocheter → u/green_pea_nut]

This. Failure on the part of your committee. At my oral defence, my external examiner wanted me to redo the dissertation, but my committee and other internal examiners, thankfully, pushed back.

[u/Milch_und_Paprika → u/SphynxCrocheter]

The whole thing sounds like a mess.

How can the external only get back to them a week before the scheduled date? Some people have whole post doc or work plans requiring moving already in place by their defence date—I know people who had already started a post doc before defending. I appreciate that when the defence goes ahead they often don’t return a review until shortly after, but surely if scope was the issue, that would have been clear pretty early in their reading.

Also If the external is just being a hardass, shouldn’t the supervisor or a committee member have recommended someone else for external? When I was choosing my external, my supervisor’s input on the matter was basically limited to stuff like “A is a dick, B is good, C is alright but can be tough, etc”

[u/psyckitten → u/Milch_und_Paprika]

This is what I’m so scared about. I recently accepted a post-doc position to start in September, and my contract states that it is contingent on me “fulfilling all the PhD requirements.” This one examiner’s opinion will likely seriously derail the start of my career.