Quals

[davidgoldfarb]

Katie has been stressing out for weeks over qualifying exams. I was never sure exactly what they entailed, and I had faith in her ability to pass any given exam, but her worry was contagious.

Well, the exam was today. From what she said, it seems to have been a general examination of her knowledge and suitability to be a Ph.D candidate, plus a review of her proposed thesis topic. And...she passed! She has a topic based on work she's been doing recently. (She said to me that she thought it was too small a problem, that for a real thesis she'd need to add another problem or two, but the committee just said, "Stop. Write your thesis about that.") She forwarded to me an email from her advisor saying that she might have a degree in as little as three months!

I wouldn't be surprised if it took a bit longer than that, but nonetheless there's an end in sight.

Comments

[kouredios.livejournal.com]

Excellent news! I'm hoping my quals and topic selection go so smoothly. Nice.

[querldox.livejournal.com]

May be different in physics from what I'm used to, but that strikes me as very unusual. At least in CS, the usual path was first quals, which were exams to show you had the basic classwork background down, then prelims which were sort of a midway point on the thesis. You were supposed to have already decided on a topic and done a fair amount of work on it, although not yet writing the thesis and still working on the topic. Very different style exams, with the quals resembling finals from hell and the prelims being examination by committee similar to the final granting of a PhD exam.

At any rate, congrats to Katie and good luck with the writing.

[mjlayman.livejournal.com]

How cool! Tell her congrats!