I’m bouncing off the walls with joy.
I’m in a MS program, and unlike a lot of MS programs (from what I infer), this program requires a written research poposal, a defense of the proposal as oral comprehensive exams, and written comprehensive exams. Like most MS programs, it also requires a written thesis and a defense of that thesis, and there is a presumption that the work will be published.
I was never afraid of the research, the proposal, the oral comps, the thesis or the defense. Daunted and nervous at times, but I really enjoy my research, and I know it sideways, and I have a great committee, so I figured it might be a hellacious trial, but there’s no way I wouldn’t/won’t make it through.
The written comps were always another matter, though. Yes, I know it’s important to have a comprehensive knowledge base to work from, but I also always knew that I can’t know everything. And the set up is that we get two chances to pass three sections out of four, fail twice and be dissmissed from the program.
I’d already taken them once, and only passed one section, so I needed to pass two this time around. When I went in, I was boggled at how much more difficult the questions were this time than last time. Mostly. Unfortunately for me, one question was so easy it should have been a “gimme”, but it was stuff that I only knew generally and not to the level of detail I knew the graders would want. And, walking in, that had been the section I was most confident I’d be able to pass. Talk about a sinking feeling. Suddenly I was banking everything on passing the two sections I knew I was terribly weak in, one of which I’d not even studied as well as I would have liked!
As you can imagine, I’ve spent the last two weeks on pins and needles, waiting for these results to come in. I’ve tried to let it go, and understand that it’s out of my hands, but I had no back-up plan here.
And I just got the e-mail saying I passed. And, almost as good (better for him), a good friend took them for the first time, and passed all four sections! Congratulations to him.
We’re going to celebrate tonight!
