Hey guys! Guess what I did on September 25th...
I PASSED MY COMPREHENSIVE EXAM!
Just to make sure y'all are as excited as I am, I'm going to detail what exactly this pass means for me as a grad student. When I entered the Biology Ph.D. program here at PSU, I was given this checksheet:
This is a list of all of the things I need to do to graduate from Penn State with a Ph.D. in Biology. You've probably noticed the rather short list of required course work - this is intentional (and highly appreciated!). Biology is such a broad subject that the department would rather focus it's efforts on teaching it's graduate students how to build connections and give talks (BIOL 590), read/write scientific papers (BIOL 592), and teach effectively (BIOL 598 & 602) than take a series of general biology classes that you might not need for your speciality. Example: while a plant physiology course would certainly be interesting and informative, I might not really need a full semester's worth of that information to conduct my research with mammals, invertebrates, and/or reptiles. |
The more universal requirements for the Graduate School at Penn State follow after the Biology-specific course work list. All grad students at PSU take a candidacy exam, a comprehensive exam, and defend their thesis for their final exam. This is a fairly standard Ph.D. grad school system within the US, even if the names of the exams vary between universities. |
Candidacy exams "assess whether the student is capable of conducting doctoral research/scholarship" - essentially that you can read, write, and put your undergraduate learning and skills to use in a research setting. At PSU, Ph.D. grad students take their candidacy exam fairly early in their grad student careers: Dan took his during his first semester here, and I took mine during my third semester.
Our exams were also structurally different based on departmental requirements. Dan's Physics exam was a traditional all-day test, where expected to answer at least 3/4 advanced-undergrad -physics-level questions about Mechanics, E&M, quantum, and thermodynamics. We Biology students are asked to critically evaluate a recent peer-reviewed scientific publication in an essay format with a newly-added oral component.
Once you've advanced past the candidacy examination you are permitted to form your graduate committee. This is a group of people, including your research advisor, that ultimately decides whether or not you've earned your Ph.D. Grad students are all Nick Fury during their early years: they assemble an team of super specialists that can effectively work with you to help solve all kinds of problems, though calling them "Avengers" might not be the most appropriate group title.
The PSU comprehensive examination is pretty similar across all departments: the Ph.D. candidate prepares a written dissertation project proposal, then discusses their said proposal with their committee after an oral presentation. Honestly, this was the most stressful thing I've had to do during grad school. |
The only thing I've noticed differs between disciplines is the length/formatting of the written component. Dan wrote up ~2-3 pages for his committee while mine was 20 pages long (with sources). I've also heard about people modeling their written piece after a dissertation-funding grant application, so they can kill two birds with one packet of papers so to say.
Your committee's job during your comps is to determine whether or not you know what you're talking about. You have to be prepared to answer all kinds of questions, including "Why are you doing this that way?", "What will x tell you about y?", and "How can you address problems A, B, C?". I even brought handouts to my comps: one detailed what I'd done during grad school so far (papers published, conferences I've spoken at, etc.), and the other was an estimated timeline for all of the major components of my projects, and funding application/conference abstract submissions.
AND I PASSED! Even though I was developing a fever and coughing through the entire 2 hour meeting, I passed :D The coolest thing about the whole experience was getting five of these super cool scientists in a room with me to talk about my research ideas. They had helpful suggestions, career advice, compliments, and constructive criticism, AND they passed me. Cheers to that!