One more step! As of this past Monday evening I finished writing my doctoral exams. For me, the hard part's over, although I still have an oral defense next week. The stacks you see in this picture constitute about 3/4 of the books I used for the exams. No, I did not exactly read every single one of them - there was some skimming involved - but I got to know quite a few of them quite well. Overall the process was fun: when else are you stuck in a room by yourself and given three days to write about the things that interest you? It's pretty cozy, all camped-out with a laptop, some music, a couple books, and my emergency kit prepared by Beth, complete with snacks, soda, kleenex, a Paul Robinett candle, and a picture of me, Beth, and Maeby to watch over me. And the total pages after three days of writing: 88. Oh yeah, baby! One page for every key on a piano. Am I the only one who thinks that's cool? Probably.
5 comments:
I think it's cool! But I don't want to write that many pages in three days.
I don't quite get your exam structure, probably because I am so fixated on my own. What material did your exams cover? Is it your theatre coursework, or focused on your research area? Are you done with exams at this point?
We're supposed to do 18 hours (3 days x 6 hours) of writing split between four areas: theatre history, dramatic literature, criticism, and our area of specialization. We can balance the hours however we want, and then our professors (one for each section, with your adviser on the specialization) give us questions to answer based on the hours. For instance, I split it at 6 hours specialization, 5 history, 4 lit, 3 crit. So my adviser gave me 3 two-hour questions to answer. My crit person gave me a two-hour question and a one-hour question. And the questions are large open-ended dealies that we develop with each person. So, while I didn't know the specific wording going in, I had a good sense of what they would ask. Sounds fun, huh?
Congrats, Nick! Well done.
you people make me want to go back to school...i'm getting the academic itch.....
i'll need to get some cream to clear that up.
I think that's cool, too. The 88-key thing. And the fact that you could pull it off. Good job!
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