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But as any seasoned doctoral student including the ones on PhD Comics knows, the entire process isn’t just about academic talent but also about developing relationships with your peers and professors. I was lucky to have an extremely helpful committee who posed no unreasonable obstacles in my path. My chair (in fact, a co-chair) took an active interest in helping me develop a basic schematic of my research proposal around which the committee would test me on. The exam in itself was a grueling process spread over three days. I was given 2 questions each day and four hours per question. I ended up cranking out around 30 single-spaced pages over those three days answering questions in planning theory, research methods and design, statistics, and my substantive research areas of brownfields remediation and gentrification. Of course, the answers had to be complete in terms of cited references too but that’s a given in any work produced by a PhD student even if it is a timed exam. I was never more tired of typing than I was at the end of those three days. I honestly couldn’t have done it again if I hadn’t made it. Only after you have gone through the process do you learn to appreciate the efforts of others before you.
I was never good at handling exam pressure so naturally I was a bundle of nerves for the past few weeks (ah-ha! hence the blogging break!) but in the end, it was an anti-climax and I needn’t have fretted at all. Old habits die hard. But this is hardly the end of the road; in fact it is just the first step of the next stage and this success goes a long way in boosting my confidence. However, for now I can sit back, relax for a while, and look forward to my wedding in nearly two months. Whew! Life goes by fast.
by Patrix | on Wednesday, October 17th, 2007 at 8:47 pm | 
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October 17th, 2007 at 9:57 pm reply
Congrats and good luck for the future.
You guys probably have it a bit tougher: I ‘only’ had to write a 15-page NIH-style proposal and defend it as if funding depended on it (which was a partial truth) in a 2-3 hour interview with the committee ! Not that it prevented me from being a bundle of nerves either :)
October 17th, 2007 at 10:31 pm reply
Congratulations.
I think my “qualifier exams” were the toughest part of my PhD. We had a question from each committee member that was like a mini proposal and then had to write a NIH proposal for my project and then defend it. Phew.
Never ever do I want to do it again.
October 17th, 2007 at 11:21 pm reply
Your free time is well-demonstrated in your current blogging frequency which, by the way, is approaching Lifehacker-ish proportions. :)
October 18th, 2007 at 2:59 am reply
Congrats, dude! As they say, it’s going to be downhill all the way!
October 18th, 2007 at 8:01 am reply
totally agree with Abi here. :) Congratulations! And maybe we shd have some PhD candidates bitching sessions.
October 18th, 2007 at 9:07 am reply
Bongo, not to rub it in but one of my questions was on those lines. Except I had to write in four hours. Naturally, I had to skip the lit review section but instead put more meat in the research design, operationalization, and measurement section, threats and all.
Sakshi, hmmmm…guess you bio wallahs have it the same but I didn’t understand why multiple versions of the same type of question? Wasn’t it redundant?
Piker, All that frenetic activity is thanks to finally making Inline Asides work without changing the template. Now if only I get Lifehackerish traffic :)
Abi, thanks, Professor and if you had told me that warning few years ago I would have scoffed at you. Now I only know it too well.
Sqrl, oh yeah! We definitely can have our own version of PhD Comics with probably more horror stories.
October 18th, 2007 at 1:31 pm reply
Talking of inline asides, regular service is about to resume very soon at my end. And I am loving the inline asides in my theme.
October 19th, 2007 at 12:30 pm reply
Awesome!!!!
Congratulations….. and all the best for the rest (of it)!!!!
October 19th, 2007 at 6:39 pm reply
Oh Congrats!! Having lived with candidates, I know how daunting it can be. So when are you targeting your final disseration?
October 19th, 2007 at 8:29 pm reply
Mugdha, thanks. Glad to see you comment. No more ‘cool chimp’, eh? :)
Supremus, thanks. Hopefully soon. But I gotta defend my proposal first to get the ABD status.
October 24th, 2007 at 12:53 pm reply
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