It's been a long while since I posted a blog on here, but that's about to change. This year so far has been intense, hectic, rewarding, and productive. Among the chaos of the spring semester at LSU, I managed to pass the general exam, a major step in pursuit of my PhD degree. As mentioned in a previous post, the general exam is a comprehensive written and oral exam designed to examine a student's knowledge of their respective field in order to ultimately determine whether they're worthy of becoming a PhD candidate.
I was nervous going into the exam. Despite putting a lot of preparation into being ready, I still felt like I knew little more than the basics of the field of ecology. I'd made a checklist of subjects, hypotheses, organisms, statistical methods, journals, current issues in ecology, influential scientists, and LSU faculty I should at least know something about, and I'd managed to tick most of these things off (while still barely scratching the surface). However, one of my PhD committee members had told me, "there's no such thing as an unfair question", which had me wondering whether there was going to be something from out of left field. I'd heard of some crazy general exam questions before, such as one professor at LSU being given a random skull to identify upon walking into their exam (it turned out to be from a bulldog). I don't remember if she answered the question correctly or not, which highlights an important attitude I tried to take in my approach to the exam: it doesn't matter if the final answer to the question is correct or not - what does matter is showing that you can use what you do know to think critically and logically about the question, providing an answer to the best of your knowledge, which will forever be incomplete.
Two weeks before the oral exam, I received my written questions. These were fairly straightforward and took about 3-4 hours to complete each. My question from Jim (my advisor) was even very helpful in developing the next phase of my research project, which I will blog about at some point in the near future. Then, the day of my oral exam was upon me in an instant and suddenly I was all alone in a room with five professors ready to explore my knowledge until they find weaknesses. But in actual fact, it went much more smoothly than I could have imagined. The first question was one I was expecting, which calmed my nerves, and from there it took only 2 and a half hours until I was done. I didn't get too many crazy questions, but I sure discovered where my strengths and weaknesses lie. My "favourite" question was where one of my committee members thumbed through an entomology book, randomly selecting orders of insects, before asking me for their common name and a to describe a paper I had read where they were the study organism. Of course, the first insect order chosen was the silverfish (Thysanura); seriously, who knows of a study of them off the top of their head? I also remember having to pull together some sort of answer for springtails (Collembola), grasshoppers (Orthoptera), beetles (Coleoptera), thrips (Thysanoptera), and butterflies and moths (Lepidoptera).
So, now I'm a qualified PhD candidate. This means I'm (supposedly) able to read and understand the literature, come up with novel research ideas, design successful experiments, collect, analyse and interpret data, and complete the cycle by adding to the scientific literature through publishing my results. Ultimately, studying for the exam was an intensely rewarding experience and I now feel like I know a little more about the world of ecology.
I really have to express a huge amount of thanks to the awesome support of my friends and family, for keeping my spirits up and accompanying me through the long, tough nights of studying with their words of encouragement, discussions of ecology, and coffee and study snacks.
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