Well, I just finished 2 days’ worth of comprehensive exams in my Ph.D program. If I pass (which I think I did), then I can finally start really working on the dissertation. For the moment, I’m going to rest my writer’s-cramped hand. Who would’ve thunk it–a Ph.D program in the quantitative sciences program in a college of business still makes doctoral students use “blue books.”:dubious:
Actually better to do these in the opposite order. Since my thesis was already finished, the comprehensive examiners just faked it.
Ah, comps. I remember a conversation with a bunch of my fellow grad students and a few faculty, held in a convivial setting, when the question came up: Would you rather take comps or eat a live frog? All the grad students agreed on the live frog – the faculty snickered.
Anyway – congrats! How long do you have to wait for results?
Congratulations! I mean, on finishing so that it’s not premature - I’m superstitious like that. 
The students in my department get a departmental laptop to write on - sucks to have to do it by hand! (Were you doing math problems and such that are easier by hand?)
Congrats on getting through them!
Comps has definitely been my least favorite part of the Ph.D. process (so far). It’s much nicer on the other side.
Sonnenstrahl, I’m in a business statistics program, so there was a fair bit of math to do, so I actually preferred being able to write out the answers by hand. I can use Equation Editor in Word, but I’ve found that the 2007 version is much harder to work with than the 2003 one that I have on my own machine (which they wouldn’t have let me use, obviously).
After the exam, I had a couple of :smack: moments where I realized I could have given better answers. There were 14 questions on Day 1 (choose 8) and 16 questions today (again, choose 8). Upon reflection, and having the luxury of time, I should have chosen to answer some of the other ones to maximize my score. But hey, the score doesn’t really matter. It’s kind of a pass fail thing, so if I pass, I’ll be happy:)