Oh, hey Prelims!

January. The January. The month I have been waiting for for a long time.

Why, you ask? 

January is the month that I scheduled for my preliminary exams (also called prelims) for my doctorate. Eeek!

What does that mean, exactly? 

I've explained it briefly before, but basically, before a doctoral student can begin working on his/her dissertation (the final step to earning a Ph.D.), the student must take exams. These exams are different for every single Ph.D., every single university, and every single department within a university. For my department, there are really no rules. I have four committee members who can ask me questions. For 2-3 weeks, there is a window of time known as the "written portion". During this time, any or all of my committee members can send me a question to answer (usually in the form of a literature review) or they can ask me to come take a sit-down exam. Once I complete the written portion of my exams, I am asked to come in for part two, an oral exam with my committee. In both parts, the committee can ask me anything I should have learned in my doctoral studies, anything that is happening in education, anything they want me to know...basically, anything.

For many students, this process is really daunting and scary. There are horror stories from graduate students who do not sleep during their exams, gain or lose lots of weight, become Gollum-esque. Basically, they are scary. However, I have felt surprisingly well-prepared and unintimidated by the process so far. I trust my committee and feel strongly about my dissertation topic. Thankfully, my committee has tailored my questions to my dissertation, so it is all completely applicable. Cool!

I prepared a bunch at the end of last semester by doing literature searches to gather articles and books I thought would be useful. I also worked my tail off in December to complete as many writing projects as I could before January hit. I did a pretty darn good job at that and feel like I sailed through prelims. Lucky me! I worked for about 6 days total, 8-12 hours each day, reading and writing my answers to my questions, then I was done. I sent off my responses and have been using the remainder of my "writing window" time to read more articles and books in preparation for the oral exam (which is on January 27th). It has been mostly unstressful  and relaxed. I feel a bit spoiled.

I am so excited that this part of the process is almost complete. I am finishing up my last ever semester of coursework and will be preparing my dissertation proposal for late Spring. Once that is complete, my last two hurdles are to write my dissertation and get a job! :) I cannot believe this journey is coming to its final chapter...but I am more excited than ever to see where it takes me!