I Have Preliminarily Earned A PhD
My prelim was yesterday. Despite most of the scientific basis for my grant proposal being potentially false, or at least frequently contested, which I conveniently discovered while giving the background and significance portion of the very information—newly false, of course—on which I was basing this proposal, I managed to pass after some really excrutiating, but stimulating, questions and debates. Perhaps I’ll post the slides from my presentation here shortly.
While I’m relieved to have it overwith and to not have to spend my nights at Starbucks anymore anytime soon, my understanding is that most people who take it pass, either unconditionally or with some slender strings attached, such as slight modifications to the protocol or making clear some finer points that are crucial to the proposed study in question, and so it’s not as if it’s a superhuman feat that is infrequently conquered. Just something that is extremely unpleasant but that everyone has to go through. Fortunately all 4 of my classmates who also had to do prelims of their own also passed, as far as I know.
Let’s hope the next time I have to write a grant, it’s not as painstaking as this first of mine was to write. Also, given that we had 15pp., double-spaced, in Arial 12-pt. font(!), in which to include a title page, an abstract page, an aims page, a full background, and a full methodology section, including figures, let’s hope too that any grants I’m faced with in the future are more generous with space, if only slightly, with which to propose experiments. Really, let’s.
at least its over. now its time to plan the wedding!
One hurdle down, 1,027,583 to go. I can’t tell you how jealous I am. I won’t even *start* my PhD for another 18 months.
Oh, I remember my prelims well. The same way one remembers having a tooth pulled with inadequate anesthesia.
If you think that was bad, wait until you defend your thesis. Walking up the stairwell from the room where I gave my talk to the room where I met with the committee, Tom Jessell (http://sklad.cumc.columbia.edu/jessell/) whispered to me, “I read every page of this last night.”
I haven’t been that intimidated before or since.
Congratulations!
[...] I mentioned last week, I recently completed my prelim for grad school, something to which I was neither looking forward [...]
FWIW, your prelims sound exactly like our quals. (at Baylor College of Medicine). We also have to write a grant proposal on a topic other than your area of research, then defend it to a committee of profs. What I’m trying to say, I guess, is that I can empathize.
Congrats on passing.
Thanks man…good to know. I’m hearing more and more that schools, or at least some departments, have that format, so I guess it’s not so unique.