Post Prelim

I was a cowboy for Halloween!

This has been a great week. The week started on Halloween when I had my preliminary exam. This is where I gave a thirty-minute presentation on my dissertation research proposal and then get questioned about my proposal and general biochemistry. As it turned out I was asked next to nothing about general biochemistry, I guess my proposed research was just that interesting. The research topic is rather unorthodox within the realm of scientific research. Almost all scientific research is hypothesis based; one proposes a hypothesis to explain an observation and then goes about to find supporting evidence, or lack thereof, of the said hypothesis. In contrast, my research is exploratory in nature. What this means is that I have no hypothesis, I have to go out and find one first. This fact led to a lot of interesting discussion in the prelim, which kept all of the questions on the research. The exam went a lot quicker than I was expecting. I passed and a celebration ensued. After the canonical lab party, the celebration continued as my lab mates and roommates took me out to Bull City Burgers. It was great! 

On Tuesday I didn’t even go into lab, I needed a break after a solid month of studying for my prelim. Instead I helped out the missionaries; first, by taking one to a transfer meeting and then bringing a new one back and, second, by taking them out to dinner and accompanying them to an appointment. The rest of the week was spent either in the lab or in the yard. I got back to lab quickly, researching the usefulness of map correlation coefficients. Since I let the yard go while I was preparing for my prelim it was in desperate need of TLC. I cleaned up fallen branches, raked leaves and weeds, mowed the lawn, turned the soil over in the garden, etc. There is still plenty to do. 

On Friday night I went to a concert given by Ingrid Fliter, an amazing classical pianist. I am absolutely in love with piano music. She played Beethoven and Chopin. It was nothing short of incredible! The pieces that she preformed were rather fast paced, thus her fingers were moving at a hundred miles per second up and down the keyboard. She made it look easy. Saturday I went to the volleyball game which is always fun. 

Looking forward, I have to get ready for a talk that I have to give at department retreat, which takes place this weekend out on the coast. I will then focus 100% on my research.

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.

My Lab Choice

The last two weeks have been rather uneventful; school, eat sleep, etc. I am wrapping up my third and final rotation this week. As such, it is time for me to choose a lab to do my dissertation work in (where I will spend the next 5+ years). I’ve made it pretty evident which lab I hope to join but had to jump through the hoops. Last Friday I officially asked Dave and Jane Richardson if I could join their lab. It took them less than a millisecond to answer in the affirmative. We had a great discussion! It will be an exciting, albeit a very challenging, 5 years. In laymen terms, and a rather crude analogy, I am going to be resolving a clear picture from a low-resolution rendition of the picture. Of course this simply means I will be attempting to improve methodologies of low-resolution x-ray crystallography protein structure building and refinement.


The reason for the Bill Nye picture: So, one of the hoops that I had to jump through is to turn in a sheet upon which I request my first a second choice for the lab that I want to join. As explained above, I had already discussed joining the Richardson lab, so there was no reason for a second lab choice. Naturally, I had to think of something smart to put on this official document. After much consideration, I chose Bill Nye.


I did finally go on a date Saturday. It was pretty low-key. We walked to TGI Friday’s then went back to her dorm where we talked a tad bit longer. It was a great date; since we walked to the restaurant we had a lot of time to talk. She is an electrical engineer undergraduate who likes reading and taekwondo. There is going to be a second date, where we will actually do something other than eat.


I have gone to a few basketball games here at Duke. The student fans are notorious for being crazy and loud. After going to a few games I can confidently say they have nothing on Utah State fans. While the students here are loud, the students in the Spectrum, where USU plays, are just as loud but USU has a lot more students that are at the games. Having said that, the Spectrum is not Cameron Indoor Stadium, where Duke plays. Cameron is most definitely sacred basketball ground.


The quote for this week comes from Neal A. Maxwell

‘We can learn that at the center of our agency is our freedom to form a healthy attitude toward whatever circumstances we are placed in!’