Spanish Department Holds First Ever Public Defense

By: Ashley Wood

Posted: 2/21/07

On December 1, the UD Spanish Program held its first-ever public defense of senior theses. Two seniors, Borja Gutiérrez and Omar Garcia-Rojas, spoke about their research before an audience of about forty people in Carpenter Hall.
Gutiérrez discussed the ars poetica of Antonio Machado, a poet of Spain's Generation of '98. Garcia-Rojas focused on Spanish-American magical-realism as it occurs in One Hundred Years of Solitude, a novel written by Gabriel García Márquez, a Columbian author who won the Nobel Prize for Literature in 1982. Following their presentations, each student fielded questions for twenty minutes.
Gutiérrez acknowledged that defending his thesis publicly was a bit intimidating.
"Being the first ones to do this put a lot of pressure on us," he said. "But I think we were able to rise to the occasion."
"It was a fulfilling event," he concluded.
Garcia-Rojas concurred.
"I was very nervous," he said. "But the whole day was very exciting."
Initially, Mr. Garcia-Rojas said, he was not aware of the public nature of the defense.
"One afternoon," he explained, "Dr. Wilhelmsen said that we needed to prepare well, because the event would be public."
"We were in shock," he admits.
In the end, however, Garcia-Rojas said that everything worked out well.
"I felt very outgoing and professional, standing there-even though my legs were shaking," he said.
"What can I say?" he mused. "I did what I could."
"It was a big honor to be a part of this," Garcia-Rojas continued, taking obvious pride in his association with the Spanish Department.
"It proved that we are working very hard to make our program stronger," he concluded.
Dr. Wilhelmsen agreed.
"They did a fantastic job," she said. "We were proud of them-they were proud of themselves."