The preliminary exam prep

Well, it has been quite a while since I have written now, has it not? A lot of rather neat things have happened since my last post. As you know I am getting ready for my prelim, the exam I need to pass to officially become a PhD candidate. ‘Prelim’ is short for preliminary exam. OK, what’s that?

The preliminary exam consists of two major components, the written and the oral. By far, the oral is the bigger part. Don’t get me wrong though, the written is pretty tough too. The written is basically an NIH grant proposal where the student proposes what they will do for their dissertation research. When doing a dissertation a committee has the job of judging the research, make sure that the student is really doing PhD level work. When you hear a PhD candidate say that they are going to defend, it is the committee to whom they defend, they are defending their dissertation research. But that is still many years off for me. Back to the prelim. I have completed the written portion of the prelim (research proposal). The committee then inspects it and, if needed, requests revisions. I am at the point now where I have received the revision requests and am making those. I should be done tomorrow, at which point I will send a final draft to my committee. The oral takes place in two weeks.

In the oral the student, me, gives a 30-minute presentation on the proposed research. After this the committee asks questions to the student pertaining to not only the proposed research but also any topic in biochemistry. The questioning usually lasts for 2+ hours. Based upon your answers the committee will either pass you, thereby declaring the student competent to pursue the proposed dissertation research, or fail you. If the student passes there is great rejoicing. If they fail the student hits the books harder and then tries the prelim again in a couple months. If the student fails twice Duke will hand out a Master’s degree and send them on packing. “Thanks for trying!”

Random Crystal

So there you have it. I am right in the middle of preparing for my orals, studying my butt off. The main problem with my research is that it is more physics than biochemistry; remember that the committee can ask any question pertaining to the field of biochemistry. So basically I am trying to relearn material that I learned 4 years ago at Utah State. I rarely feel stressed, its just who I am, almost nothing in this world is so serious as to cause stress, right? However, this past week I have felt pangs of stress as I have come to realize that I don’t, and can’t, know everything that I think I’ll need to know for the prelim. I have received a small amount of comfort as I was told that, in the end, the committee is more concerned on how you can reason rather than how much you know. Still, the best way to prepare to reason through biochemical problems is to study biochemistry and gain as much knowledge as is possible.

With two weeks to go I feel there is a long way to go before I can confidently declare that I am ready.  Nonetheless, I feel like everything will work out just fine.