my life, my pace

I’ve put it off way longer than I should have. And it’s not my fault. Well, not 100% my fault. When I first started grad school still high from that adrenaline that pumps non-stop during those hectic first two years of med school, I wanted to take my quals as soon as possible so that I could finish my PhD as soon as possible. Then in stepped my major professor, who told me that I’d be committing suicide by doing so and that I should take the quals at the last possible minute to ensure that I would have enough time to study for it. Adding to his argument was the fact that one of the classes I wanted to take was only offered in alternate years and not that particular year. So I really had no choice but to wait until this fall to take my quals.

So I putted along with my grad school classes (none of which could even come close to matching the difficulty of a single med school class, by the way) and dutifully met with my advisor at the end of the year. I had listed out the courses I still needed to take before being done with the required coursework, including the I-put-off-my-quals-to-wait-for-this-class one. When he saw this course listed, he told me that it had not been offered for awhile and that he didn’t think that it was ever going to be offered again and to confirm with the professor. I emailed the professor and found out that what my advisor had said was true. Which meant that I tacked on a whole entire extra year to my grad school coursework for absolutely nothing! And that I had to find another class out of the extremely pathetic available classes in my graduate group to take in its place. Exercise physiology—whoo-hoo…

I was angry about this issue for awhile. If I hadn’t listed that course in my little-list-of-courses-to-take-before-quals section when I met my advisor, then I wouldn’t have even found out that the class wouldn’t be offered until the quarter I was waiting for came along and I got a rude awakening! And what are advisors for if they can’t even prevent me from making such a fatal-yet-easily-avoidable-had-someone-only-told-me mistake? And why have my graduate group’s class listings not been updated since 1962?! I slowly got over my anger as I accepted that there was nothing I could do about it at that point and because I thought that I would be able to speed along my research because of my very light courseload. Well, I got nowhere with my research and am still nowhere one year later thanks to my good for nothing lazy major professor.

And I never got around to taking my quals when I said I would either. First, I told myself spring quarter (i.e., three months ago). Then I said September. But I didn’t schedule that either and I can’t imagine how I would have studied had I scheduled it with those pesky freeloading kids around. So today, I finally managed to pull myself out of that rut, and drumroll please, emailed all the members of my qualifying exam committee to see if they’re available in December (which is the latest I can take the exam before someone notices that I haven’t taken it yet). Just the act of contacting them makes me want to faint. I purposely contacted them today so that I’ll have all weekend to recover from emailing them and to prepare myself for their responses.

But I’m angry again. At myself because I failed to schedule and take the exam sooner. For being lazy and all sand-people-like. And at my major professor and my graduate group because they did not guide me and push me in the right direction. I was all gunner-like when I started grad school and now I just want to be done and almost even regret doing it. And all because I’ve felt that all I’ve done these last two years is flounder without any guidance whatsoever. Abandoned is the word for it, I believe.

But all I can do now is look forward. There’s no point in regretting what I did or didn’t do or the fact that I’ve become such a lazy bum. So I will pause my whining for now. Look for it to continue when I receive those email responses on Monday.

*For those of you who are not familiar, the qualifying exam (also known as the PhD oral) is the big scary test a grad student takes after completing all required coursework that determines whether said grad student will advance to candidacy (be allowed to finish their PhD) or be sent home with a “thanks for trying” sticker. I imagine it to be an interrogation, super nerdy scientific style—five faculty members grilling one poor grad student about random esoteric things just because they can and because they like seeing grad students squirm.

Related posts:

1. and that’s why i called it the dreaded phd qualifying examIt’s always hard to get back into the more annoying things in life (such as setting up my quals) after enjoying the more fun things in life (such as having a nice semi-relaxing weekend with my non-crazy family). I almost convinced myself not to check my email today, but knew better. And things were going well at first. Committee member #1: December is good. I like certain days of the week. Committee member #2: December is good except for a few dates. And then there was committee member #3: December is not good at all. D’oh. Eh well, that’s to be expected considering I’m trying to schedule this all at the last minute. On to committee member #4’s (who is also the chair of the committee) response: WTF, why didn’t anyone tell me about this? Okay, so maybe those weren’t his exact words, but close enough. I proceeded to start freaking out once I read this response because committee member #4 is by far the scariest member of my committee and also the chair of my committee, who I really didn’t want to piss off. So I freaked out for a good fifteen minutes or so before deciding to ask my older and wiser major professor how to proceed with this turn of events. Instead of being helpful, he just kept right on rubbing it in my face, saying “That’s why I told you to contact your committee earlier. You’re going to fail now that the chair of your committee...
2. how to freak a grad student out (tip #251): random qualifying exam committee shuffleAdmit it.  You're always on the lookout for cruel new and unusual ways to freak your grad student out.  It's obviously not enough for you that s/he is already always in full-on freak-out mode for one reason or another anyway.  You just have to make it worse, right?  Well, time to rejoice because I'm now compiling tips on how to freak grad students out from my experiences on the receiving end of such torture.  So let's preface by saying that I'm already super freaked out since I'm supposed to be studying for quals and I haven't been for oh, the last two weeks.  And I keep promising myself that today will be the day that I'll get back into super hardcore studying mode everyday.  So I'm freaked out.So today, I tried really hard to study.  But I was distracted by a number of things, only a few of which actually pertained to grad school.  Just when I was getting ready to hunker down for a long day of studying, an email pops up in my inbox that fills my heart with fear.  Why?  Because its subject was: Qualifying Exam Assignment - mylifemypace.  Oh crap.  They figured out that I should have taken my quals last quarter.  Masochist in me clicked on the email anyway and it took forever to load while my major professor blabbed away about the Mercedes SL500 (seriously, can't you see I'm in the middle of something?).  When it finally loaded, it wasn't what I thought it...
3. how to freak a grad student out (tip #323): ask her to take her qualifying exam earlierHere's another way to freak a grad student out.  And it's almost as cruel as randomly changing one of her qualifying exam committee members.  It's rather simple, really.  Ask her to change the time of her qualifying exam from afternoon to morning so that she can't possibly spend the morning either sleeping because she stayed up really late the night before preparing or doing last minute studying/freaking out.  Not only that, but make sure that you're having her change the time for a completely non-life-threatening reason such as simply because you felt like it.  Even better yet, also make sure to request this change as close to the actual date of the exam as possible so that it'll really catch her by surprise.Yep, that's exactly what the chair of my committee wanted.  And that's what she got.  I was counting on Evil Committee Member to shoot the request down, but she didn't.  So now, I get to fail my quals that much earlier on January 24th.  My husband thinks it's a good thing because I'll be fresh and will get it over with.  But I just think it's going to make things worse than they already are.  I'm so screwed ...

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