My prelim cometh. Keep me sane.

Miscellaneous and Personal Stuff I Must Share
1

Greeting all. Tomorrow, Thr the 14th at 10:30 I will take my prelim exam for my PhD program in molecular biology. For those that don’t know, this means I must defend a research proposal I turned in in front of a panel of five faculty three of which I’ve never met. Its just me, a blackboard, and questions fired at me for an hour or so.

Between now and then, as I am going over our my last minute details and frantically trying to cram data into my head, and especially tomorrow morning as I wait for my turn, I will be scared witless.

I need encouragement, I need humor, E-cards, hugs, flirts, luck, prayers, large cash donations, whatever you think might cheer and pump me up as I go through the night and morning.

If you’ve read this far, thanks a bunch for your time.

2

Ah, my favorite SYLM[sup]TM[/sup]. :smiley:

I give you incentive!

I’ll stop by later with more of those.

3

Some tips for surviving the defense of your research proposal:

-when a question is asked, mutter loudly under your breath and say, “I KNEW some moron would ask that!”

-when there is some critisism, say, “That’s what they ALL say!”

-stop every once in a while, point a finger to the most quiet member of the inquisition, and demand, “What do YOU think, Mr. Punybrain?”

-if you are using a chalkboard to write equations/depictions/etc., occasionally throw an eraser at a memeber of the panel, and yell, “Wake up, Asswipe! I ain’t talking for my health, ya know!”

-if you can, arm a few of your friends with M-16’s loaded with blanks, and ask them to burst in during your defense of your proposal and shoot the place up for a few seconds, screaming, “Death to the establishment!!” You can then calmly proceed with your defense saying, “Now that we got THAT out of the way…”

-take a bottle of tequila, and pause every few seconds to take a big swig (between points). They’ll respect that…

-ALWAYS keep a lit cigarette in your hand, so that when a question is asked, you can approach the person asking, take a deep drag, exhale a big cloud of smoke slowly in his/her face, and say, “You want me to answer that, don’t you? DON’T YOU?”
I hope these tips prove to be worthwhile!

Good luck!!

4

Verrain, as others have gone for humor, I’ll go for the potentially practical. Having been in your shoes about five years ago, I can empathize. Two things helped me:

(1) Read the requirements from the grad school about the Ph.D. objective. At most institutions it says the purpose is several fold, including: (a) proof that the student can conduct original research and (b) proof that the research makes a contribution to the state of the science in the field. The prelim is a last attempt by your committee to assess your ability to do a and b and to see if you need any additional coursework. Nothing more, nothing less.

(2) Your Ph.D. work will not be the best original research you’ll ever do, it’s the first. Sure, you’ve likely made some little mistakes in your prelim preparations. Don’t let them bug you. Turn them to your advantage: you’ll learn more from thinking about and addressing these flaws (as well as the flaws in your dissertation) than you will from the things that are “perfect.” One thing that helped me keep this in perspective is thinking about the number of “perfect” studies I’ve seen published in peer-reviewed journals. They’re not very many, and the “perfect” ones seem uncannily to be the classics that everyone cites.

Also, spend a few quiet moments reflecting or picturing in your mind how you’ll conduct yourself in the prelim. Sort of like a game plan. Committee members will ask tough questions. Plan how you’ll respond. Be honest. “Hmmm… that’s a really tough question. My first thought is to say X, although there’s also a good case for Y.” Briefly state your rationale for each. Then, turn it into a meeting of peers by asking: “Does anybody have a better idea?” Be prepared to laugh at yourself. I bungled several questions. They knew it, I knew it. Humor helped us all out of the awkwardness.

Sorry this has gone over-long. Good luck!

p.s. A decent-sized cup of water is an asset. You’ll be talking a lot.

5

I found prelims to be less stressful than comps. I mean, my statistics comps lasted 8 hours and were truly brutal. We broke for lunch and reconviened for the second set of 6 questions. Six courses worth of information and no crib sheets allowed. I had to calculate the F ratio for a three group one way ANOVA – BY HAND!!!

[cute story]
In preparation for the comps, I packed quiet food as snacks. I put raisins in a Tupperware and even unwrapped two Cereal bars and put them in Tupperware. I wanted to do some stealth snacking. During the afternoon, someone behind me started eating HARD PRETZELS!! Imagine sweating bullets and suddenly hear Crunch, Crunch, Crunch. Everybody turned to look. She was kind of surprised, but still had a mouthful of pretzel bits. She tried to finish the mouthful quietly, but… Crunch, Crunch, Crunch. Even the proctor looked at her askance. I guess she just let the remaining bits dissolve in her mouth as we heard no more from her. And then, when the cell phone went off in someone’s bookbag at the front of the room…
[/cute story]

Best of luck. Stay calm and in control. I’m sure you will do fine. The panel is trying to determine if you are ready, not if you are worthy.

6

Ivorybill Thanks for the advice. It was good to hear that from someone further down the road.

Astroboy, Spritle Thanks for the humor and story.

Arden Thanks for the incentive.

7

Eat well beforehand. Remove all waste beforehand. Anything you do when you’re nervous like cracking knuckles do beforehand so you won’t have cause to when you get in.

Realize that this proposal doesn’t have to be perfect. It just has to work.

8

{{Verrain}}
Good luck :slight_smile: and I hope the flirt from the other thread helped relax you a little…

9

Don’t be afraid to take a moment to collect your thoughts before answering. You won’t look stupid; you’ll look thoughtful.

Prepare some complimentary intros to your responses. You’ll want several so you don’t wear out “That’s a good question…” Some others: “You’ve identified one of the key concerns that comes up in this kind of study…” “Thank you for asking–my discussion wouldn’t be complete if I didn’t cover that…” You don’t want to kiss ass with EVERY response, but one per faculty member would be good.

Try to avoid sounding defensive. Sometimes faculty won’t let go of a point because it’s important to them. They’re making a statement and it may not have a lot to do with you or your response. Resist the temptation to try to refute their point if they keep pressing it. You can put an end to it with a collegial “I know what you’re saying, but it appears we just have a different perspective on that, for the reasons I just stated.”

Try to remember that scholarly questioning and challenging (and disagreement) goes on at the highest levels. It’s easy to forget that and think that the prelim and the later defense are all about finally breaking out of the student role by winning over your colleagues and answering every challenge. Nope. It’s about arguing your point and negotiating scholarly differences like a scholar would. Actually, you’ll probably do it with more class than most senior scholars–have you read the petty crap they write in those academic journals (Often titled “A response to…”)? Christ!

Write down the questions you’re most afraid of them asking, and prepare an answer for those. Practice delivering those responses in a convincing way. If they ask those, you’re prepared. If they don’t, your prelim is already easier than your worst fears!

Be prepared to talk about why your research is important, and what you think the next steps should be (for yourself, or anyone who desired to follow up on your findings).

Good luck. I hope to be in your shoes in a few months! Well I hope it’s not molecular biologists at my prelim, though, since that’s not my field…

10

Verrain,
Good luck to you. Sleep as best you can tonight, better to be sharp tomorrow. Eat something easily digestible tomorrow. Keep the blood sugar up. Water is needed. If you know the board, maybe ask yourself how your talk touches on their relative specialties. That may tell you what their respective questions are. You’ll nail it.

11

Well the prelim is over and done, and my feelings are quite ambivalent. At this point I am looking for a conditional pass. It was quite clear my proposal needed more thought and work put into it, but thought I acquitted myself well when asked about the weaknesses. There were a few questions about my techniques that were asked that I could not answer well but on the whole very few things stopped me dead.

I don’t know. I don’t think I did bad enough to fail, but I worry. And I will continue to worry until about 5 o’clock tonight when I get the magic phone call.

Thanks for the support and advice. It was much appreciated.

12

They’re making you wait until 5:00? Slimy bastards. Even after my dissertation defense the committee didn’t take more than a half an hour… What are they doing? Checking the slow-motion replay?

Still, it feels good to be done, right? Copious beerage around 5:15, I assume?

Congrats.

13

In a sense yes. They have a Uniform examiner that sits in on all prelims of that day and tries to control for some prelims being too light and others too harsh. So until all have gone for this day, the final decision can’t be made. Its better than some sub-groups. They had to wait until all in their group had gone meaning a day or two later.

Oh Hell ya! I wish I had a cell phone so they could page me at the bar. And it will feel better once I know once and for all.

14

Ah, well. Better that they try to level the playing field than have it degenerate into popularity contest.

Hoist one (or several) for me if you get the chance.

15

Well I passed. I have to rewrite the document, bascially 2/3 of it must change, but I passed and that’s the important thing. Unless I totally screw up the rewrite I will not have to redefend and that’s the other important thing. I am off to have copious beerage. Later all.

16

Congrats! Given that they want you to alter 2/3rds of your proposal, you won’t get the opportunity to pull what one of my committee members said he did. Several profs on his committee wanted him to rewrite portions of his dissertation. He didn’t think they needed to be rewritten, but he said he’d do it. He basically just spent a month applying for jobs and doing other things, then gave them an unchanged copy of his dissertation. They said “thanks” and passed him.

17

Congrats. You cleared the bar, now empty it!

18

Well done!

Now that’s over I can tell the story about my mate David.
He’s up for a promotion, and has to field questions about the business and his career objectives from 3 senior executives.
So first he goes in a pullover, not a suit. :wally
Then when he’s finished he (nervously) opens the door, steps thru, nodding at the board and shuts the door.

It’s a cupboard. :eek:

After a while he opens the door and leaves. :o :o
No, he didn’t get the job…